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IN IRANIAN SUFISM

HENRY CORBIN

JjuU ORJA MINOR

Ursa Minor

Pimim / ; m ? flunk of iftr 4S C.nm trllatians, Treatise on Uranometry
liy AiilVI lloHiiytt a I Sufi (<l. 376/986).

(|*h 1 1• Nalioitalc; Arabic manuscript 5036)

The Man of Light
in Iranian Sufism

HENRY CORBIN

Translated from the French by
Nancy Pearson

OMEGA PUBLICATIONS
Publisher and Bookseller

The Turkish calligraphy on the cover reads Bismillah inrabman
irrrahim: In the name of God, the Generous and Merciful.

Cover design by Abi’l-Khayr and Barkat Curtin.

THE MAN OF LIGHT IN IRANIAN SUFISM.

This edition published 1994, by arrangement with Shambhala
Publications. Two minor corrections have been made to the text,
and a preface has been added to the book.

OMEGA PUBLICATIONS INC
256 DARROW ROAD
NEW LEBANON NY 12125-2615
www.omegapub.com

Printed in the United States of America.
ISBN 0-930872-48-7
10 98765432

Preface

He brings them forth from the shadows into the light.

Qur'an 11.258.

Anyone who has been moved by the supernal glory of the
moment when the Sun emerges from the eastern horizon has an
inkling of the spirituality of light. This inchoate experience of the
community of the luminous and the numinous is the point of
departure for the Wisdom of Illumination formulated by
Shihaboddin Yahya Sohravardi, the great reviver of Hermetic
gnosis in Islam who suffered a martyr's death in 12 th C Syria. At the
heart of Sohravardi's mystic science is the recognition that the "I"
of every self-aware entity is a pure, immaterial light.

While Sohravardi's works exercised a profound influence
on spiritual and intellectual currents within Islamdom, they were
never translated into Latin and thus remained virtually unknown
in the West for centuries. Henry Corbin (1903-1978) deserves the
lion's share of credit for the redressal of this state of affairs. As a
young man Corbin was introduced to Sohravardi by his teacher
Louis Massignon, who presented him with a lithograph of the
martyred shaykh's Arabic masterpiece Hikmat al-Ishraq. The
penny dropped. In his correspondence with Massignon years later,
Corbin spoke of Sohravardi as "mon shaykh" (my spiritual guide).
Far from merely serving as a research topic, Sohravardi had

become Corbin's initiator.

Thanks to Corbin's lifelong commitment to editing,
translating, and (most importantly) interpreting the writings of
Sohravardi and his commentators, the Master of Illumination has
increasingly become a source of fresh inspiration for philosophers,
psychologists, artists, and mystics in the West. One might venture
to compare Corbin's contemporary unveiling of the Wisdom of
Illumination with Sohravardi's high-spirited revival of the gnosis
of ancient Iran in his own era. Like that of Sohravardi, Corbin's
work harmonizes critical reasoning and visionary intuition, modes
of knowing now more than ever out of sync. In revalorizing
imagination as an epistemological category Corbin coined the term
"imaginal," an expression which has quickly gained wide
interdisciplinary currency.

While the presence of Sohravardi inspired and oriented
Corbin's work, it by no means confined his interests. The Wisdom
of Illumination has no use for ta'assub, "fanaticism". Steeped in
a lchem y, a ngelology, color sy m bolism, cosm ology, geosophy, Gra il
lore, hiero-history, love theory, subtle physiology, sacred geometry,
sophiology and theophanic phenomenology, Corbin's oeuvre of
some two hundred critical text editions, books and articles
constitutes a monumental contribution to the fields of Islamic
philosophy, Sufism, and Shi'ite esotericism.

In the present volume, Corbin weaves the fiber of
Sohravardi's metaphysics into a tapestry resplendent with the
colors of German romanticism, Mazdaism, Manicheism,
Hermeticism, and the Sufism of Ruzbehan Baqli, Najmoddin
Kobra, Najmoddin Razi, Shamsoddin Lahiji, and Alaoddawleh
Semnani. The awakening of the body of light is the theme. The
transformative experiences of illumination described in these pages
amount to nothing less than the fulfillment of a supplication that
resounds to this day in mosques from the Maghreb to Java:

O God, place light in my heart, and light in my
soul, light upon my tongue, light in my eyes and
light in my ears, place light at my right, light at my
left, light behind me and light before me, light
above me and light beneath me. Place light in my
nerves, and light in my flesh, light in my blood,
light in my hair and light in my skin! Give me
light, increase my light, make me light!

Zia Inayat Khan

Contents

I. ORIENTATION I

1. The Pole of Orientation 1

2. The Symbols of the North 4

II. THE MAN OF LIGHT AND HIS GUIDE 13

1. The Hermetic Idea of Perfect Nature 13

2. The Nous of Hermes and the Shepherd of Hermas 26

3. Fravarti and Walkyrie 28

4. The Heavenly Twin (Mandeism and Manicheism) 33

III. MIDNIGHT SUN AND CELESTIAL POLE 39

1. The Cosmic North and the “Oriental Theosophy”

ofSohravardI(1191) 39

2. Visions of the Pole in Ruzbehan of Shiraz (1209) 52

3. The Pole as the Abode of the Angel Sraosha 55

IV. VISIO SMARAGDINA 61

1. Najmoddm Kobra (1220) 61

2. Light and Spiritual Warfare 64

3. The Trilogy of the Soul 66

4. Like with Like 68

5. The Function of th eDhikr 73

6. The Green Light 76

7. The Senses of the Suprasensory World 80

8. The Orbs of Light 82

9. The “Heavenly Witness” 84

10. The Scales and the Angel 89

V. THE BLACK LIGHT 99

1. Light without Matter 99

2. The Doctrine of Photisms according to Najm Razi

(1256) 103

3. Black Light in the “Rose Garden of Mystery”

(1317) 110

VI. THE SEVEN PROPHETS OF YOUR BEING 121

1. Alaoddawleh Semnani (1336) 121

2. The World of Colors and the Man of Light 131

3. The “Physiological” Colors according to Goethe 139

NOTES 145

BIBLIOGRAPHY 161

INDEX 163

. . a lamp burning with the oil of an olive
tree which is neither of the East nor of
the West, bursting into flame even
though fire touch it not. . . And it is light

upon light.

—Qoran 24:35

I. ORIENTATION

1. The Pole of Orientation 1

Orientation is a primary phenomenon of our presence in the
world. A human presence has the property of spatializing a
world around it, and this phenomenon implies a certain rela¬
tionship of man with the world, his world, this relationship
being determined by the very mode of his presence in the
world. The four cardinal points, east and west, north and
south, are not things encountered by this presence, but direc¬
tions which express itssmse, man’s acclimatization to his world,
his familiarity with it. To have this sense is to orient oneself in
the world. The ideal lines that run from east to west, from
north to south form a system of a priori spatial evidences with¬
out which there would be neither geographic nor anthropolog¬
ical orientation. And indeed, the contrasts between Eastern
man and Western man, between Nordic man and Southern
man, regulate our ideological and characterological
classifications.

The organization, the plan, of this network has depended
since time immemorial on a single point: the point of orienta¬
tion, the heavenly north, the pole star. Is it enough, therefore,
to say that spatialization, developed horizontally toward the
four cardinal points, is completed by the vertical dimension
from beneath to above, from the nadir to the zenith? Or rather

I. Orientation

are there not in fact different modes of perception of this same
vertical dimension, so different in themselves that they modify
the orientation of the human presence, not only in space but also
in time? “Orientation in time” refers to the different ways in
which man experiences his presence on earth, and the con¬
tinuity of this presence within a kind of history, and the ques¬
tion as to whether this history has a sense, and if so, what sense?
This in turn raises the question whether the perception of the
heavenly pole, of the vertical dimension tending toward the
cosmic north, is a uniform phenomenon, physiologically regu¬
lated by constant laws, or whether the phenomenon is not in
fact regulated and diversified by the very mode of being of the
human presence orienting itself? Hence therefore the primor¬
dial importance of the north and of the concept of the north: it
is in accordance with the way in which man inwardly experi¬
ences the “vertical” dimension of his own presence that the
horizontal dimensions acquire their seme.

Now one of the leitmotive of Iranian Sufi literature is the
“Quest for the Orient,” but this is a Quest for an Orient which,
as we are forewarned (if we do not already realize), is not—and
cannot be—situated on our geographical maps. This Orient is
not comprised in any of the seven climes ( keshvar)\ it is in fact the
eighth clime. And the direction in which we must seek this
“eighth clime” is not on the horizontal but on the vertical. This
suprasensory, mystical Orient, the place of the Origin and of
the Return, object of the eternal Quest, is at the heavenly pole;
it is the Pole, at the extreme north, so far off that it is the
threshold of the dimension “beyond.” That is why it is Only
revealed to a definite mode of presence in the world, and can
be revealed only through this mode of presence. There are
other modes to which it will never be revealed. It is precisely
this mode of presence that characterizes the mode of being of
the Sufi, but also, through his person, the mode of being of the
entire spiritual family to which Sufism—and especially Iranian
Sufism—belongs. The Orient sought by the mystic, the Orient
that cannot be located on our maps, is in the direction of the
north, beyond the north. Only an ascensional progress can lead
toward this cosmic north chosen as a point of orientation. 2

A primary consequence already foreseen is, to be exact, a
dislocation of the contrasts regulating the classifications of

§i. Pole of Orientation

exoteric geography and anthropology, which depend on outer
appearances. Eastern men and Western men, Northern men
and Southern men, will no longer be identified by the charac¬
teristics previously attributed to them; it will no longer be pos¬
sible to locate them in relation to the usual coordinates. We are
left wondering at what point the loss comes about in Western
man of the individual dimension that is irreducible to
classifications based on exoteric geographic direction alone.
Then it may happen, just as we have learned to understand
alchemy as signifying something quite different from a chapter
in the history or prehistory of our sciences, that a geocentric
cosmology will also be revealed to us in its true sense, having
likewise no connection with the history of our sciences. Consid¬
ering the perception of the world and the feeling of the uni¬
verse on which it is based, it may be that geocentrism should be
meditated upon and evaluated essentially after the manner of
the construction of a mandala.

It is this mandala upon which we should meditate in order to
find again the northern dimension with its symbolic power, ca¬
pable of opening the threshold of the beyond. This is
the North which was “lost” when, by a revolution of the human
presence, a revolution of the mode of presence in the world,
the Earth was “lost in the heavens.” “To lose sight of the North”
means no longer to be able to distinguish between heaven and
hell, angel and devil, light and shadow, unconsciousness and
transconsciousness. A presence lacking a vertical dimension is
reduced to seeking the meaning of history by arbitrarily impos¬
ing the terms of reference, powerless to grasp forms in the up¬
ward direction, powerless to sense the motionless upward im¬
pulse of the pointed arch, but expert at superimposing absurd
parallelepipeds. And so Western man remains baffled by Is¬
lamic spirituality, with its powerful call to recollection of the
“pre-eternal covenant”: and by the heavenly Assumption
(mi’raj) of the Prophet; he does not even suspect that his own
obsession with the historical, his materialization of “events in
Heaven,” can be equally baffling to others. In the same way,
the Sufi “Heavens of Light” will remain forever inaccessible to
the most ambitious “astronautic” investigation, their very exis¬
tence not even being suspected. “If those who lead you say, ‘Lo!
the Kingdom is in the sky!,’ then the birds of heaven will be

I. Orientation

there before you . . . But the Kingdom is within you and also
outside of you.” 2,1

2. The Symbols of the North

And so, if we found ourselves writing the words Ex Oriente lux
as an epigraph, we would be completely mistaken if we im¬
agined we were saying the same thing as the Spiritual masters
discussed in this work are saying, and if looking for the “Light
of the Orient” we merely turned toward the geographical east.
For, when we speak of the sun rising in the east, this refers to
the light of the day as it succeeds the night. Day alter¬
nates with night, as two opposites alternate which by their very
nature cannot coexist. Light rising in the east and light going
down in the west are two premonitions of an existential option
between the world of Day with its criteria and the world of
Night with its deep and insatiable passions. At best, on the
boundary between the two we have a twofold twilight: the cre-
pusculum vespertinum, no longer day but not yet night; the cre-
pusculum matutinum, no longer night but not yet day. This strik¬
ing image, as we know, was used by Luther to define the being
of man.

In our turn, let us pause to consider what a light can signify
which is neither eastern nor western, the northern light: mid¬
night sun, blaze of the aurora borealis. It is no longer a ques¬
tion of day succeeding night, nor night, day. Daylight breaks in
the middle of the night and turns into day a night which is still
there but which is a Night of light. Et nox illuminatio mea in de-
liciis meis. This already suggests the possibility of an innovation
in philosophical anthropology: the need to situate and inter¬
pret in an entirely new way the opposition between East and
West, Light and Darkness, in order finally to discover the full
and unforeseen significance of the northern light, and con¬
sequently of Nordic man, the man who “is at the north,” or who
is going toward the north because he has come from the north.

But the north can only attain its full significance by a mode
of perception which raises it to the power of a symbol, to being
a symbolic direction, that is, to a “dimension beyond” which can
be pointed to only by something that “symbolizes with” it. And
so we are concerned with primordial Images preceding and

§ 2 . The Symbols of the North

regulating every sensory perception, and not with images con¬
structed a posteriori on an empirical basis. For the sense of the
given phenomenon depends on the primordial Image: the
heavenly pole situated on the vertical of human existence, the
cosmic north. And even in geographic latitudes where we
should hardly think it possible for the phenomenon to occur,
its archetypal Image exists. The “midnight sun” appears in
many rituals of mystery religions, just as it suddenly bursts
forth, in Sohravardi’s work, in the midst of an ecstasy of which
Hermes is the hero. Later Iranian Sufi masters refer to the
Night of light, the dark Noontide, the black Light. And in the
Manichean faith it is the flames of the aurora borealis that are
visualized in the Columna gloriae as composed of all the particles
of Light reascending from the infernum to the Earth of light,
the Terra lucida, itself situated, like the paradise of Yima, in the
north, that is, in the cosmic north.

Preceding all empirical data, the archetype-images are the
organs of meditation, of the active Imagination; they effect the
transmutation of these data by giving them their meaning, and
precisely in so doing make known the manner of being of a
specific human presence and the fundamental orientation in¬
herent in it. Taking its bearings by the heavenly pole as the
threshold of the world beyond means that this presence then
allows a world other than that of geographical, physical, as¬
tronomical space to open before it. Here “traveling the straight
path” means straying neither to the east nor to the west; it
means climbing the peak, that is, being drawn toward the
center-, it is the ascent out of cartographical dimensions, the dis¬
covery of the inner world which secretes its own light, which is
the world of light; it is an innerness of light as opposed to the
spatiality of the outer world which, by contrast, will appear as
Darkness.

This innerness must in no way be confused with anything
that our modern terms subjectivism or nominalism may be
supposed to refer to; nor with anything imaginary in the sense
of this word that has been contaminated for us by the idea of
unreality. The inability to conceive of a concrete suprasensory
reality results from giving too much importance to sensory re¬
ality; this view, generally speaking, leaves no alternative but to
take the suprasensory universe as consisting of abstract con-

I. Orientation

cepts. On the contrary, the universe which in Sohravardfs
neo-Zoroastrian Platonism is called the mundus imaginalis ('alarn
al-mithal) or the “heavenly Earth of Hurqalya” is a concrete
spiritual universe. It is most certainly not a world of concepts,
paradigms, and universals. Our authors never cease to repeat
that the archetype of a species has nothing to do with the uni¬
versals established in logic, but is the Angel of that species. Ra¬
tional abstraction, at best, deals only with the “mortal remains”
of an Angel; the world of archetype-images, the autonomous
world of visionary Figures and Forms, is on the plane of
angelology. To see beings and things “in the northern light” is
to see them “in the Earth of Hurqalya,” that is, to see them in
the light of the Angel; it is described as reaching the Emerald
Rock, the heavenly pole, coming upon the world of the Angel.
And this presupposes that the individual person as such, irres¬
pective of anything collective, virtually has a transcendent di¬
mension at his disposal. Its growth is concomitant with a
visionary apperception, giving shape to the suprasensory per¬
ceptions and constituting that totality of ways of knowing that
can be grouped under the term hierognosis.

As a corollary, the terms of reference presupposed by the
mystical symbols of the north here suggest something like a
psycho-spiritual realm of three dimensions, which the ordinary
two-dimensional view cannot account for, since it is restricted
to contrasting consciousness and unconsciousness. To put it more
precisely, it has to do with two Darknesses: there is one Dark¬
ness which is only Darkness; it can intercept light, conceal it,
and hold it captive. When the light escapes from it (according
to the Manichean conception or the Ishraq of SohravardI), this
Darkness is left to itself, falls back upon itself; it does not be¬
come light. But there is another Darkness, called by our mystics
the Night of light, luminous Blackness, black Light.

Already in the mystical Recitals of Avicenna, an explicit dis¬
tinction, dependent on the vertical orientation, is established
between the “Darkness at the approaches to the Pole” (the di¬
vine Night of superbeing, of the unknowable, of the origin of
origins) and the Darkness which is the extreme Occident of
Matter and of non-being, where the sun of pure Forms de¬
clines and disappears. The Orient in which the pure Forms
rise, their Orient-origin , is the pole, the cosmic north. Here al-

§ 2 . The Symbols of the North

ready the Avicennan recital explicitly shows us a twofold situa¬
tion and meaning of the “midnight sun”: on the one hand, it is
the first Intelligence, the archangel Logos, rising as a revela¬
tion over the Darkness of the Deus absconditus , and which, in
terms of the human soul, is the arising of superconsciousness on
the horizon of consciousness. On the other hand, it is the
human soul itself as the light of consciousness rising over the
Darkness of the subconscious. 3 We shall see how, in Najmoddln
Kobra’s work, the colored photisms (in particular “luminous
black” and green light) proclaim and postulate an identical
psycho-cosmic structure. That is why orientation requires here a
threefold arrangement of planes: the day of consciousness is on a
plane intermediate between the luminous Night of supercon¬
sciousness and the dark Night of unconsciousness. The divine
Darkness, the Cloud of unknowing, the “Darkness at the ap¬
proaches to the Pole,” the “Night of symbols” through which
the soul makes its way, is definitely not the Darkness in which
the particles of light are held captive. The latter is the extreme
Occident, and is Hell, the demonic realm. Orientation by the
Pole, the cosmic north, determines what is below and what is
above; to confuse one with the other would merely indicate
disorientation (cf. infra V, 1).

This orientation might well be what would enable us to val¬
idate what Michel Guiomar so admirably foresaw. Our classical
oppositions expressed in the refusal of the hostile dawn or, on
the contrary, in the distress of twilight, of the “refused eve¬
ning,” might well turn out to be nothing other than pairs be¬
come unrecognizable, that is to say the divergence, in Mediter¬
ranean and northern geographical areas, from one and the
same great original myth. This would imply an explosion of
this myth into two kinds of anguish, two refusals, two correla¬
tive kinds of powerlessness in the case of the man who has lost
his “polar dimension,” that is to say of man no longer oriented
toward the heavenly pole and so faced with the dilemma of Day
succeeding Night, or of Night succeeding Day.

To speak of the polar dimension as the transcendent di¬
mension of the earthly individuality is to point out that it in¬
cludes a counterpart, a heavenly “partner”, and that its total
structure is that of a bi-unity, a unus-ambo. This unus-ambo can
be taken as an alternation of the first and second person, as

I. Orientation

forming a dialogic unity thanks to the identity of their essence
and yet without confusion of persons. This is why the polar
dimension is heralded in the guise of a Figure whose recurrent
manifestations correspond on each occasion to an absolutely
personal experience of the spiritual seeker and to a realization
of this bi-unity. So it is that in Iran in the twelfth century (sixth
century of the hegira) this Figure reappears in contexts which
differ but which in every case appertain to a metaphysics or a
mystical experience of Light.

In northwestern Iran, Sohravardi (d. 1191) carried out the
great project of reviving the wisdom or theosophy of ancient
pre-Islamic Zoroastrian Iran; he set the seal on this achieve¬
ment by dying as a martyr in Aleppo in the fullness of his
youth, victim of the vindictiveness of the doctors of the Law.
He called his theosophical system Ishraq because he traced its
source to an Orient and to the illumination of an Orient which
is not the geographical east. Certainly the Sages of ancient Per¬
sia were above all others the representatives and guardians of
this wisdom, but the fact that they are referred to as “Orientals”
relates in the true sense to their orientation toward the
Orient-origin of pure Light. Three centuries before the Byzan¬
tine philosopher Gemistus Pletho, Sohravardi’s work made a
link between Plato and Zarathustra, in a doctrine dominated by
the name and wisdom of Hermes. And so the same figure
which in Hermetism is that of the heavenly I, the Alter Ego, the
eternal partner and companion, reappears in Sohravardi
under the name of Perfect Nature.

A contemporary of Sohravardi in southwestern Iran,
Ruzbehan of Shiraz (d. 1209), the imam par excellence of the
“Fedeli d’amore" in Iranian Sufism, declares in his Diarium
spirituale that his decisive experience, his personal initiatic
proof, was a series of visions referring to the heavenly Pole; it
was by meditating on these that he finally understood how he
was personally and secretly connected with the group of the
masters of initiation symbolized by the stars stationed in the
mmediate vicinity of the Pole star.

Lastly, at the extreme east of the Iranian world, in Trans-
ixiania, Najmoddln Kobra (d. 1220) guided the Sufism of Cen-
ral Asia toward the practice of meditation with particular at-
ention to the phenomena of light and chromatic succession that

§ 2 . The Symbols of the North

will make clear to us the significance and pre-eminence of the
green Light. And in this context we meet again the homologue
of Perfect Nature, the Figure whom Najm Kobra calls his
“Witness in Heaven,” his “suprasensory personal Guide,” “Sun
of the mystery,” “Sun of the heart,” “Sun of high knowledge,”
“Sun of the Spirit.”

Concerning this Figure, NajmoddTn Kobra teaches his dis¬
ciple: “Thou art he”—and he illustrates his affirmation by add¬
ing the impassioned words of the lover to his beloved: “Thou
art myself ( anta ana)." However, settling for the ordinary terms
“I” and “self’ to describe the two “dimensions” of this unus-
ambo might well lead to a misunderstanding of the real situa¬
tion. More often than not. Self designates an impersonal or
depersonalized absolute, a pure act of existing which obviously
could not act as second person, the second term of a dialogic
relationship. But the alternative, whether in experience or of
necessity, is not the supreme deity as described in dogmatic
definitions. Deus est nomen relativum : this essential and essen¬
tially individuated relationship is what is heralded in experi¬
ence by the apparitional Figure we are attempting to recognize
here under different names. One cannot understand this rela¬
tionship except in the light of the fundamental Sufi saying:
“He who knows himself knows his Lord." The identity of himself
and Lord does not correspond to a relationship of 1 = 1, but of
lxl: the identity of an essence raised to its total power by
being multiplied by itself and thus put in a condition to consti¬
tute a biunity, a dialogic whole whose members share alter¬
nately the roles of first and of second person. Or again the state
described by our mystics: when, at the climax, the lover has
become the very substance of love, he is then both the lover and
the beloved. But himself will not be that without the second per¬
son, without the thou, that is to say without the Figure who
makes him able to see himself, because it is through his very
own eyes that the Figure looks at him.

It would therefore be as wrong to reduce the two-
dimensionality of this dialogic unity to a solipsism as to divide it
into two essences, each of which could be itself without the
other. The seriousness of the misunderstanding would be as
great as the inability to distinguish between the Darkness or
demonic Shadow that holds the light captive, and the divine

I. Orientation

Cloud of unknowing which gives birth to the light. For the
same reason, recourse to any collective schema can only be
valid if the schema is taken as a descriptive process for indicat¬
ing the potentialities that are repeated in every individual case,
and above all the potentiality of the / which is not itself without
its other “I”, its Alter Ego. $ut such a schema by itself would
never explain the real event: the intervention “in the present”
of the “Perfect Nature,” the manifestation of the “Heavenly
Witness,” the reaching of the pole. For the real event exactly
implies a break with the collective, a reunion with the tran¬
scendent “dimension” which puts each individual person on
guard against the attractions of the collective, that is to say
against every impulse to make what is spiritual a social matter.

It is because of the absence of this dimension that the indi¬
vidual person lowers himself and succumbs to such falsifica¬
tions. On the other hand, accompanied by the shaykh al-ghayb,
his “suprasensory personal Guide,” he is led and directed toward
his own center, and ambiguities cease. Or rather, to suggest a
more exact image, his “suprasensory Guide” and his individual
person come to be situated in relation to one another as the two
foci of the ellipse.

The divine and the satanic remain ambiguous so long as
consciousness is unable to distinguish between what is its Day
and what is its Night. There is an exoteric Daylight: so long as
its conditions prevail, the “midnight sun” which is the initiatic
light cannot show itself. This Day and this Night are unaware
of one another and nevertheless are accomplices; the soul lives
in this Daylight only because the Night is in itself. The ending
of this ambiguity is the harbinger of the “midnight sun” with its
horizons upon horizons: it may be the divine Night of super¬
consciousness irradiating the field of light of consciousness,
and it may be the light of consciousness overcoming the Dark¬
ness of the subconscious, of the unconsciousness which was
hemming it in. In both cases a burst of light rends the tissue of
ready-made answers: the fictions of causal relationships, of
linear evolutions, of continuous currents, everything that bol¬
sters up what people have agreed to call the “sense of history.”
The sense of another history rising from Earth to Heaven is
revealed: the history of an invisible spiritual mankind whose
cycles of earthly pilgrimages refer to “events in Heaven,” not to

§ 2 . The Symbols of the North

the evolutionary fatality of successive generations. This is the
secret history of those who survive the “deluges” that over¬
whelm and suffocate the spiritual senses, and who rise again
one after another, time after time, into the universes toward
which the same Invisible Forces guide them. This then is the
orientation that has to be made clear: where is it leading, and
what makes it such that the being who takes on the effort of this
upward movement is, at the same time, the “being beyond”
whose growing manifestation itself guarantees this progress?
Hidden in this reciprocity, this act of correlation, is the whole
secret of the invisible Guide, the heavenly Partner, the “Holy-
Spirit” of the itinerant mystic ( salik ), who, needless to repeat, is
neither the shadow nor the “Double” as in some of our fantastic
tales, but the Figure of light, the Image and the mirror in
which the mystic contemplates—and without which he could
not contemplate—the theophany ( tajalli ) in the form correspond¬
ing to his being.

These few remarks throw light on the way by which the
present research must be pursued. The attempt must be made
to establish the identity of this Figure under the various names
that are given to its apparitions, for this very diversity supports
us in the study of religious orientations which suggest the same
type of individual initiation whose fruit is reunion with the
Guide of light. The spiritual universe of Iran, before and after
the advent of Islam, here becomes of the greatest importance.
In its recurrent expressions (Zoroastrianism, Manicheism,
Hermetism, and Sufism) this Figure points in one direction: to
the light of the North as the threshold of the beyond, to the
dwellings in the high North which are the inner abodes secret¬
ing their own Light. The mystic Orient, the Orient-origin is the
heavenly pole, the point of orientation of the spiritual ascent,
acting as a magnet to draw beings established in their eternal
haecceity toward the palaces ablaze with immaterial matter.
This is a region without any coordinates on our maps: the
paradise of Yima, the Earth of light, Terra lucida, the heavenly
Earth of Hurqalya. The ways of approach to it are pre-sensed in
the splendor of a visio smaragdina, the outburst of green light
characteristic, according to Najm Kobra and his school, of a
specific degree of visionary apperception. Its appearance may
precede or succeed the “darkness at the approach to the pole,”

I. Orientation

the crossing of which is the supreme ordeal of individual initia¬
tion; in other words the theme comes either as a prelude or as a
sequel to the theme of the “black Light,” as we shall hear it
described below by two masters of Iranian Sufism. Since the
theme is as fertile as it is exemplary, we shall only point out
here some of the connections that open up before us. To go
into them in detail would call for other lines of research.

The passing from the “black Light,” from the “luminous
Night: to the brilliance of the emerald vision will be a sign,
according to SemnanI, of the completed growth of the subtle
organism, the “resurrection body” hidden in the visible physi¬
cal body. Exactly here the connection between the experience
of colored photisms and the “physiology of the man of light” is
unveiled: the seven subtle organs (latifa), the seven centers
typifying the Abodes of the seven great prophets in the man of
light. The growth of the man of light thus recapitulates in¬
wardly the whole cycle of Prophecy. The idea of this growth,
which is the liberation of the man of light, can be read even in
certain types of Iranian painting (from Manichean painting to
the Persian miniature). Finally, the physiology of the man of
light, whose growth is accompanied by colored photisms each
having a precise mystical significance, is an integral part of a
general doctrine of colors and of the very experience of color.
We point this out briefly and at the end of this chapter because
this is not the first time that a meeting takes place between the
genius of Goethe and the Iranian genius.

. . . For thou art with me . . . all the days

of my life.

—Psalm 23 (22):4, 6

TT THE MAN OF LIGHT
AA - AND HIS GUIDE

1. The Hermetic Idea of Perfect Nature

Use of the word “syncretism” leads easily to abuse. It is used
most often as a substitute for reasoned argument to avoid
further consideration of some project nobly conceived to re¬
store in the present doctrines generally accepted as belonging to
a “bygone past.” Yet nothing fluctuates more than the notion of
“past”; it depends actually on a decision, or a pre-decision,
which can always be surpassed by another decision which re¬
stores a future to that past. The whole history of gnosis
throughout the centuries is rather like that. The restoration of
an “oriental theosophy” ( hikmat al-Ishraq) by Sohravardi in the
twelfth century was not exempt from such sweeping and unde¬
served judgment on the part of those who were able only to
acquaint themselves rapidly and superficially with his work.
Certainly, as with any other personal systematization, one finds
elements in Sohravardl’s system that are obviously
identifiable—they belong to Hermetism, Zoroastrianism,
Neoplatonism, the Sufism of Islam—but the organization of
these materials into a new structure is directed by a central in¬
tuition, as original as it is consistent. This central intuition is
made explicit in the form of a number of Figures, amongst
which the role assumed by the Hermetic figure of the Perfect
Nature ( al-tiba' al-tamm ) is especially noteworthy. An essential

II. The Man of Light and His Guide

detail: the Arabic tradition of Hermetism is the only one that
allows us to give this Figure its context. From it we learn that
Perfect Nature is the heavenly paredros, the Sage’s Guide of
light. To understand its role and manifestation, it is necessary
to picture to oneself the anthropology from which it is insepar¬
able, an anthropology whose hero is the man of light, held cap¬
tive by Darkness and struggling to free himself from Darkness.
The entire ideology and experience centered on the manifesta¬
tion of Perfect Nature thus presuppose the idea of the man of
light and his living experience of the cosmic adventure. Only
then can one understand how the couple comes to be joined in
the dialogic unity of man of light and his Guide to which we find
so many references in Arabic Hermetism down to the time of
Sohravardl.

We can follow the presence of the idea of the “man of light”
even further in the Sufism of Najm Kobra, where the Arabic
expressions shakhs min nur and shakhs niiranl are the equivalent
of the Greek expression tpoireivos 'avOpamos. The Greek term
figures in the Hermetic documents transmitted to us by
Zosimos of Panopolis (third century), the famous alchemist
whose teaching is based on the meditation of physical metal¬
lurgical operations as models or symbols of invisible processes,
of spiritual transmutations. 4 This doctrine refers both to a
Christian Gnosticism represented in this case by the “Books of
the Hebrews,” and to a Hermetic Platonism represented by the
“Holy Books of Hermes.” Common to both is an anthropology
from which the following idea of the man of light emerges:
there is the earthly Adam, the outer man of flesh (arap
klvos aydpamos) subject to the Elements, to planetary influences,
and to Fate; the four letters comprising his name “encipher”
the four cardinal points of the earthly horizon. 5 And there is
the man of light ((paneivos’aydpcMros), the hidden spiritual
man, the opposite pole to corporeal man: phos. The homonyms
(pass, light, and <pcos, man, thus bear witness in language itself to
the existence of the man of light, the individual par excellence
(the spiritual hero corresponding in this sense to the Persian
javanmard). Adam is the archetype of carnal men; Phos (whose
own personal name was known only to the mysterious
Nicotheos) is the archetype, not of humans in general, but of
men of light, the (panes.

§ 1. The Hermetic Idea of Perfect Nature

Phos, innocent and peaceful, pre-existed in paradise; the
archons tricked him into clothing himself in the corporeal
Adam. But the latter, explains Zosimos, was the man whom the
Greeks called Epimetheus and who was advised by his brother
Prometheus-P/tos not to accept the gifts of Zeus, namely, the
bond which would enslave him to Fate, to the powers of this
world. Prometheus is the man of light, oriented and orienting
toward light because he follows his own guide of light. Those
who have only physical hearing cannot hear him, for they are
subject to the power of Fate, to the collective powers; only those
who have spiritual hearing, that is, senses and organs of light,
hear his summons and his advice. And this already, we notice,
points to a physiology of the man of light and of his subtle
organs.

As for more precise information about the Guide of Light,
we gather it both from Zosimos and from the Gnostics to whom
Zosimos himself referred. It is, in fact, the man of light who
speaks through the mouth of Mary Magdalene when, in the
course of the initiatic conversations between the Resurrected
Christ and his disciples, she assumes the predominant role con¬
ferred on her in the book of the Pistis Sophia, the New Testa¬
ment of the religion of the man of light: “The power which
issued from the Savior and which is now the man of light within
us. . . . My Lord! Not only does the man of light in me have ears
but my soul has heard and understood all the words that thou
hast spoken. . . . The man of light in me has guided me; he has
rejoiced and bubbled up in me as if wishing to emerge from me
and pass into thee.” 6 Just as Zosimos places on the one hand
Prometheus-P/to5 opposite his guide of light who is the “son of
God,” and on the other the earthly Adam opposite his guide,
the Antimimos, the “counterfeiter,” so in the book of the Pistis
Sophia : “It is I, declares the Resurrected One, who brought
thee the power which is in thee and which issued from the
twelve saviors of the Treasury of Light.”

By the same inversion and reciprocity which in Sufism
makes the “heavenly Witness” simultaneously the one Con¬
templated and the Contemplator, the man of light appears
both as the one guided and the guide; this communicatio
idiomatum forewarns us that the bi-unity, the dialogic unity,
cannot be taken as the association of Phos and carnal Adam,

II. The Man of Light and His Guide

who follows another guide. The Light cannot be compounded
with the demonic Darkness; the latter is Phos’s prison, from
which he struggles to separate himself and which will return to
its primordial negativity. The syzygy of light is Prometheus-
Phos and his guide, the “son of God.” This very fact also points
clearly to a structure, which has nevertheless been subject to all
kinds of misunderstandings. “The power which is in thee,” in
each one of you, cannot refer to a collective guide, to a manifes¬
tation and a relationship collectively identical for each one of the
souls of light. Nor, a fortiori, can it be the macrocosm or univer¬
sal Man (Insan kollt) which assumes the role of heavenly
counter-part of each microcosm. The infinite price attached to
spiritual individuality makes it inconceivable that salvation
could consist in its absorption into a totality, even a mystical
one. What is important is to see that it refers to an analogical
relationship presupposing/owr terms, and this essentially is just
what is so admirably expressed in the angelology of Valentinian
Gnosis: Christ’s Angels are Christ himself, because each Angel
is Christ related to individual existence. What Christ is for the
souls of Light as a whole, each Angel is for each soul. Every
time one of these conjunctions of soul and Angel takes place,
the relationship which constitutes the pleroma of Light is re¬
produced . 7 The relationship is in fact so fundamental that it is
found again in Manicheism, and is also what, in Sohravardi’s
“oriental theosophy,” makes it possible for us to conceive the
relationship between the Perfect Nature of the mystic and the
archetypal Angel of humanity (identified with the Holy Ghost;
the Angel Gabriel of the Qoranic Revelation, the active Intelli¬
gence of the Avicennan philosophers). What this Figure repre¬
sents in relation to the totality of the souls of light emanated
from itself, each Perfect Nature represents respectively for
each soul. The concept of this relationship is what we are
guided toward by the Hermetic texts in Arabic concerning Per¬
fect Nature.

The most important of these texts known today is a work
attributed to Majrltl: the Ghayat al-Hakim (the “Goal of the
Sage”), composed no doubt in the eleventh century, but from
far more ancient material, since it informs us in detail about the
religion and ritual of the Sabeans of Harran . 8 There already
Perfect Nature is described as “the philosopher’s Angel,” his

§ 1. The Hermetic Idea of Perfect Nature

initiator and tutor, and finally as the object and secret of all
philosophy, the dominant figure in the Sage’s personal reli¬
gion. Again and again, the description sounds the fundamental
note: his Perfect Nature can only reveal itself “in person” to
one whose nature is perfect, that is, to the man of light; their
relation is this unus-ambo in which each of the two simultane¬
ously assumes the position of the / and the self —image and
mirror: my image looks at me with my own look; I look at it
with its own look.

The first thing you have to do in relation to yourself , 9 is to
meditate attentively on the spiritual entity (ruhaniyato-ka, “your
angel”) which rules you and which is associated with your star—
namely your Perfect Nature—which the sage Hermes mentions in
his book, saying: “When the microcosm which is man becomes
perfect in nature, his soul is then the homologue of the sun
stationed in Heaven, whose rays shed light on all horizons.” Simi¬
larly, Perfect Nature rises in the soul; its rays strike and penetrate
the faculties of the subtle organs of wisdom; they attract these
faculties, cause them to rise in the soul, just as the rays of the sun
attract the energies of the terrestrial world and cause them to rise
in the atmosphere.

Thus it is suggested that between Perfect Nature and its soul,
there will be a relationship—as formulated in the psalm com¬
posed by SohravardI to his own Perfect Nature—such that the
Bearer of the Child is simultaneously the Child who is Born,
and vice versa.

Wise Socrates declared that Perfect Nature is called the sun of the
philosopher, the original root of his being and at the same time the
branch springing from him. Hermes was asked: “How does one
achieve knowledge of wisdom? How can one bring it down to this
world below?” “Through Perfect Nature,” he answered. “What is
the root of wisdom?” “Perfect Nature.” “What is the key to wis¬
dom?” “Perfect Nature.” “What then is perfect Nature?” he was
asked. “It is the heavenly entity, the philospher’s Angel, conjoined
with his star, which rules him and opens the doors of wisdom for
him, teaches him what is difficult, reveals to him what is right, in
sleeping as in waking .” 10

We have just heard Hermes speak of the philosopher’s Sun,
and in Najm Kobra, the homologue of Perfect Nature, the
“Witness in Heaven,” the suprasensory personal master, is de¬
scribed as the Sun of mystery, the Sun of the heart, and so
forth; and in one of his ecstatic recitals, SohravardI will tell us

II. The Man of Light and His Guide

when and how this run rises which is not the sun of the earthly
east or west. Perfect Nature is so surely the ultimate secret that,
as we read on, we are also told how it is the one part of mystical
theosophy revealed by the Sages exclusively to their disciples
and never mentioned, whether orally or in writing, outside
their circle.

It follows that every account of the attainment of Perfect
Nature represents an actual performance of the drama of initi¬
ation, whether enacted in the dream state or in the waking
state. It is attained at the center, that is, in a place filled with
Darkness which comes to be illuminated by a pure inner Light.
One such account in the same work is Hermes’ recital, where it
is said:

When I wished to bring to light the science of the mystery
and modality of Creation, I came upon a subterranean vault filled
with darkness and winds. I saw nothing because of the darkness,
nor could I keep alight because of the violence of the winds. Lo
and behold, a person then appeared to me in my sleep in a form
of the greatest beauty . 11 He said to me: “Take a lamp and place it
under a glass to shield it from the winds; then it will give thee light
in spite of them. Then go into the underground chamber; dig in
its center and from there bring forth a certain God-made image,
designed according to the rules of Art. As soon as you have drawn
out this image, the winds will cease to blow through the under¬
ground chamber. Then dig in its four corners and you will bring
to light the knowledge of the mysteries of Creation, the causes of
Nature, the origins and modalities of things.” At that I said, “Who
then art thou?” He answered: “I am thy Perfect Nature. If thou
wishest to see me, call me by my name .” 12

The same account also appears, word for word, in a text
attributed to Appollonius of Tyana (Balinas in Arabic). Here
the ordeal of personal initiation consists of the efforts of the
man of light, Phos, before whom the Darkness of the primor¬
dial secret is transformed into a Night of light. It is in this effort
toward the center, the pole, and “the Darkness at the approach
to the pole,” that the Guide of light, Perfect Nature, suddenly
shows itself to him and tells him what to do to bring light into
this Night: to dig for the Image which is the primordial revela¬
tion of the Absconditum. Having put his lamp under a glass , 13 as
prescribed by Perfect Nature, the initiate enters the subterra¬
nean chamber; he sees a Shaykh, who is Hermes and who is his
own image, sitting on a throne and holding an emerald tablet

§ 1. The Hermetic Idea of Perfect Nature

which bears an inscription in Arabic, the Latin equivalent of
which is: hoc est secretum mundi et scientia Artis naturae. 1 * The
identification of the man of light and his Guide of light is estab¬
lished by making Phos into the light-bearer, (/>a>c r<f)6po<;, for it is
both to him and through him that Perfect Nature, his guide,
reveals that it is in itself the secret: the secret of the light of the
inaccessible divine Night.

Thenceforth they are so intimately united that one and the
same role is played in turn, even simultaneously, by Hermes
and his Perfect Nature. This is what is suggested in Sohravar-
di’s writings where Perfect Nature is described, particularly in
the passionately lyrical psalm referred to above and in the “Sa-
bean” liturgies conveying knowledge of the same characteristic
situation. Hermes is the prophet of Perfect Nature; by initiat¬
ing him to wisdom, his Perfect Nature taught him how to wor¬
ship itself, taught him the form of prayer by which to call for it
and cause it to appear (a Hermetic dhikr)\ this personal worship
is what Hermes transmitted to the Sages, instructing them to
perform among themselves, at least twice a year, this personal
liturgy of their Perfect Nature. Thus we find a Sabean liturgy
addressed to Hermes himself, invoking him in turn in the very
same words in which he had been taught by his Perfect Nature
to address it. 15 Here we have an experiential testimony, far bet¬
ter than a theory, provided by the performance of a prayer, of
the relationship suggested by Sohravardfs own psalm, where
he addresses Perfect Nature simultaneously as the one who
gives birth and the one who is born. The same relationship, as
we shall see, is implicit in the specifically Sufi notion of the
shahid , the witness-of-contemplation: the Sufi contemplates
himself in contemplating the theophanic witness; the Con-
templator becomes the Contemplated and vice versa, a mystical
situation expressed by the wonderful Eckhartian formula:
“The seeing through which I know him is the same seeing
through which he knows me.”

A particularly full and original development of the theme
of Perfect Nature is found in a philosopher who lived a little
before Sohravardi, namely Abu’l-Barakat Baghdadi, a subtle
and very individual thinker of Jewish origin, converted late in
life to Islam, who died about 560/1165 at the age of ninety.
Since we have dealt with him at greater length elsewhere, 16 we

II. The Man of Light and His Guide

shall only recall here how the theme of Perfect Nature seeps
into his work in regard to the problem, inherited from Av¬
icenna and the Avicennans, of the Active Intelligence. When
the Active Intelligence of the Avicennans is taken to be the
same as the Holy Spirit, and the latter the same, in the Qoranic
Revelation, as the Angel Gabriel—in other words, the Angel of
Knowledge as being the same as the Angel of Revelation—far
from leading to a rationalization of the Spirit, it raises again, on
the contrary, the whole problem of noetics in terms of angelol-
ogy. Thereupon a further question arises: why should there be
only one Active Intelligence? To answer this question calls for a
decision as to whether all human souls are identical in species
and essence, whether each soul differs from another in kind, or
again whether they are not perhaps grouped essentially in
spiritual families composing many different species.

This is why the ancient Sages . . . initiated into things the sen¬
sory faculties do not perceive, maintained that for each individual
soul, or perhaps for several together having the same nature and
affinity, there is a being in the spiritual world which throughout
their existence watches over this soul and group of souls with
especial solicitude and tenderness, leads them to knowledge, pro¬
tects, guides, defends, comforts them, leads them to victory; and
this being is what they called Perfect Nature. This friend, defender
and protector is what in religious terminology is called the Angel.

Although here the aspect of intimate union is not so explicitly
stressed, the theme nevertheless faithfully echoes the Hermetic
teachings; it defines the situation which will result, according to
SohravardI, from the relationship to be established between the
Holy Spirit, the Angel of Humanity, and the Perfect Nature of
each man of light. Whether it is referred to as the divine Being
or as the archetype-Angel, no sooner does its apparition reveal
the transcendent dimension of spiritual individuality as such,
than it must take on individualized features and establish an
individuated relationship. From that very fact, a direct rela¬
tionship is established between the divine world and this
spiritual individuality, independently of the mediation of any
earthly collectivity. "Some souls learn nothing except from
human masters; others have learned everything from invisible
guides known only to themselves.”

In Sohravardl’s vast body of writings, there are three pas-

§ 7 . The Hermetic Idea of Perfect Nature

sages in particular that throw light on the theme of Perfect Na¬
ture, not theoretically, but as a figure in a visionary experience
or as one who speaks in answer to a prayer. The most explicit is
in the Book of Conversations, 17 where SohravardI undoubtedly
alludes to the Hermetic text quoted a few pages back: a lumin¬
ous form appears to Hermes; it projects or breathes into him
the knowledge of gnosis. To Hermes’ question, “Who then are
you?” it answers, “I am your Perfect Nature .” And in another
passage 18 we find the invocation addressed by Hermes to his
Perfect Nature amidst the perils that come to try him in the
course of a dramaturgy of ecstasy, an allusive dramatization of
an initiatic ordeal experienced in a secret personal world
(wherein Hermes may then perhaps be a pseudonym for
SohravardI). Now the hour as well as the place of this visionary
episode evoke the symbols of the North to indicate the passage
to a world beyond the sensory world. This episode is the most
striking illustration of the theme we are analyzing here: Perfect
Nature, the guide of light of the spiritual individuality, “opens”
its transcendent dimension by making possible the crossing of
the threshold . . . (see also infra III). The “person” to whom the
appeal is addressed in this initiatic ecstasy is the same Perfect
Nature addressed in the psalm composed by SohravardI, which
is perhaps the most beautiful prayer ever directed to th e Angel.
In this sense it is a personal liturgy, conforming to the instruc¬
tions which, say the “Sabeans,” were a legacy from Hermes to
the Sages: 19

Thou, my lord and prince, my most holy angel, my precious
spiritual being, Thou art the Spirit who gave birth to me, and
Thou art the Child to whom my spirit gives birth . . . Thou who
art clothed in the most brilliant of divine Lights . . . may Thou
manifest Thyself to me in the most beautiful (or in the highest) of
epiphanies, show me the light of Thy dazzling face, be for me the
mediator . . . lift the veils of darkness from my heart. . .

This conjunction is what the spiritual seeker experiences when
he reaches the center, the pole; the same relationship is found
again in Jalaloddln Rumi’s mysticism and in the whole
Sohravardian tradition in Iran, as we learn from the testimony
of Mir Damad, the great master of theology at Ispahan in the
seventeenth century. It is a relationship in which the mystical
soul, as Maryam, as Fatima, becomes the “mother of her

II. The Man of Light and His Guide

father,” omm abi-ha. And this again is the meaning of the verse
in Ibn ’Arab!: “I created perception in Thee only that therein I
might become the object of my perception.” 20

This relationship, inexpressible except in paradoxical
terms, is the one toward which the same fundamental experi¬
ence consistently tends, notwithstanding the diversity of its
forms. Again, Sohravardi dramatizes the search for this ex¬
perience and its attainment in a complete short work: a
visionary recital, a spiritual autobiography entitled Recital of the
Occidental Exile. This recital is related not only to the texts of the
Hermetic tradition, but also to a text eminently representative
both of gnosis and of Manichean piety, the famous Song of the
Pearl in the book of the Acts of Thomas. Although it is true that
such a book could not but be relegated by official Christianity
to the shadowy realm of Apocrypha, it can nevertheless be said
to express the leitmotiv of all Iranian spirituality still alive in
Sufism. 21 Some may see in the Song of the Pearl a prefiguration of
Parsifal’s quest; Mount Salvat, emerging from the waters of
Lake Hamun (on the present-day frontier of Iran and Af¬
ghanistan) has been likened to the “Mountain of the Lord”
(Kuh-e Khutajeh), where the Fravartis watch over the Zarathus-
tran seed of the Savior, the Saoshyant to come; as the Mons
victorialis, it was the point from which the Magi began their
journey, bringing Iranian prophetology back to the Christian
Revelation; it connects at last the memory of King Gon-
dophares and of the preaching of the Apostle Thomas. What is
certain is that on the one hand Sohravardf s Recital of the Exile
begins where Avicenna’s Hayy ibn Yaqzan ended, and that on the
other hand the Recital of the Exile is so closely parallel to the
Song of the Pearl that everything takes place as though
Sohravardi himself had just been reading the story of the
young Iranian prince sent by his parents from the Orient to
Egypt to win the Pearl without price.

The young prince sheds the robe of light which his parents
had lovingly woven for him; he arrives in the land of exile; he is
the Stranger', he tries to go unnoticed yet he is recognized: they
feed him the food of forgetfulness. And next comes the mes¬
sage carried by an eagle, signed by his father and by his
mother, the queen of the Orient, and by all the nobles of

§ 1. The H ermetic Idea of Perfect Nature

Purthia. Thereupon the prince remembers his origin and the
Pearl for which he had been sent on his mission to Egypt. And
then comes the “departure from Egypt,” the exodus, the great
Return to the Orient. His parents send two emissaries to meet
him and bring him the robe he had left behind when he de¬
parted. He does not remember what it was like, having been a
small child when he took it off:

And behold, I saw it altogether in me and I was altogether in
it, for we were two, separated from one another but nevertheless
only one, of similar form ... I saw also that all the movements of
gnosis were taking place in it and I saw further that it was about to
speak ... I saw that my stature had grown to fit the way it was
made and in its regal movements it spread over me . 22

Without doubt the author thus expressed in the most direct
way and with a happy simplicity the bi-unity of Perfect Nature
(here represented by the robe of light) and of the man of light
guided by it out of exile, a bi-unity which is in fact inexpressible
in the categories of human language.

All these themes recur in Sohravardf s Recital of the Occiden¬
tal Exile. 23 Here also the child of the Orient is sent into exile in
the West, symbolized by the city of Qayrawan, which is the
same as the city mentioned in the Qoran as the “city of the
oppressors.” Recognized by the oppressors’ people, he is put in
chains and thrown into a well from which he can only emerge
at night for fleeting moments. He also experiences increasing
powerlessness due to fatigue, forgetfulness, and disgust. Then
comes his family’s message from afar, carried by a hoopoe, in¬
viting him to set out without delay. Thereupon, in the blazing
light that awakens him, he departs in search of that Orient
which is not the east on our maps but which lies in the cosmic
north (just as the Iranian Sages, the guardians of the “oriental
theosophy,” derive their epithet “Oriental” from an Orient
other than geographic east). To return to the East is to climb
the Mountain Qaf, the cosmic (or psycho-cosmic) mountain,
the mountain of the emerald cities, all the way up to the
heavenly pole, the mystical Sinai, the Emerald Rock. Sohravar¬
df s major works make this topology clearer to us (see infra III):
this Orient is the mystical Earth of Hurqalya, Terra lucida,
situated at the heavenly north. This is the very place where the

II. The Man of Light and His Guide

meeting occurs between the pilgrim and the one who gave
birth to him (and to whom the psalm quoted above is ad¬
dressed), his Perfect Nature, the personal Angel, who reveals
to him the mystical hierarchy of all those who go before him in
the suprasensory heights and at the same time, pointing to the
one immediately before himself, declares: “He contains me just
as I contain you.”

The situation is similar: in both recitals the exile, the
stranger, faces up to the powers of oppression which try to
force him to forget and to conform to the demands of their
collective mastery. The exile was at first a heretic; but when the
criteria are secularized and become social criteria, he is no
more than a madman, a misfit. From then on his situation is
curable and the diagnosis is not hindered by such distinctions.
And yet mystical consciousness has available a criterion of its
own which makes it irreducible to these delusive assimilations:
the prince of the Orient in the Song of the Pearl and the Recital of
the Exile knows where he is and what has happened to him; he
has even tried to “adapt,” to disguise himself, but he has been
recognized; he has been forced to swallow the food of forget¬
fulness; he has been chained in a well; in spite of all that, he will
understand the message and knows that the light which guides
him (the lamp in Hermes’ underground chamber) is not the
exoteric daylight of the “city of the oppressors.”

One further example will be given here to support the fact
that this is the leitmotiv of Iranian spirituality (the image of the
well appears again constantly in Najm Kobra). We have just re¬
ferred to the parallel between thedcfa of Thomas and Sohravar-
dfs Recital. This same parallelism reappears elsewhere. A com¬
pilation which in its present form cannot have been made ear¬
lier than the seventh/thirteenth century, and which is pre¬
sented as an Arabic elaboration of a Sanskrit text, the
Amrtakunda, includes a short spiritual romance which in fact is
none other than the text of a recital elsewhere wrongly attrib¬
uted to Avicenna, entitled Risalat al-Mabda wa’l-Ma'ad, “The
Epistle of the Origin and the Return,” 24 a title borne by many
philosophical works in Arabic and Persian and which from a
gnostic point of view, can also be translated “Genesis and
Exodus,” that is, the descent to the earthly world, into occi-

§ 1. The Hermetic Idea of Perfect Nature

dental exile, and the departure from Egypt, the return home.

Here the stranger is sent on a mission by the lord of his
country of origin (the Orient) and before his departure re¬
ceives instructions from his lord’s wise minister. The place of
exile is the city where the people of the outer and inner senses
and of the physiological energies appear to him as a crowd of
active and agitated people. At last, in the heart of the city, he
finds himself one day before the throne of the shaykh who
rules the country. He comes near and speaks to him; the same
gestures and words respond to his own gestures and words. He
realizes that the shaykh is himself (see above, the initiate recog¬
nizing his own image in the image of Hermes). Then suddenly
the promise made before his departure into exile is remem¬
bered. In his bewilderment, he encounters the minister who
had given him his instructions and who now takes him by the
hand: “Plunge into this water for it is the Water of Life!” On
emerging from the mystical bath he has understood all sym¬
bols, deciphered all codes and finds himself once more before
his prince. “Be welcome!” says the prince, “Henceforth you are
one of us.” And having cut in two the thread spun by a spider,
the prince puts it together again, saying: lxl.

This is also the formula that we suggested above, because he
who deciphers it holds the key to the secret that preserves him
both from pseudomystical monism (whose formula is 1 = 1)
and from abstract monotheism which is content to superim¬
pose an Ens supremum on the multitude of beings ( n 4- 1). It is
the cipher of the union of Perfect Nature and the man of light,
which the Song of the Pearl so excellently typifies: “We were two ,
separated from one another, and yet only one , of similar
form.” 25 Even without having to consider Avicenna as the au¬
thor of this spiritual romance, it nonetheless confirms the
meaning of his Recital of Hayy ibn Yaqzan. Although it has been
so weakly interpreted as to make it impossible to discern in this
Recital anything beyond an inoffensive philosophical allegory
on the interpreter’s level, it nevertheless has a deeper sense
which shines through page after page, because, as in the other
Recitals of the Avicennan trilogy, Hayy ibn Yaqzan points a
finger to the same Orient to which Sohravardi’s recitals redirect
us.

II. The Man of Light and His Guide

2. The Nous of Hermes and the Shepherd of Hernias

The archetypal Figure exemplified by the apparition of Perfect
Nature assumes therefore in respect to the man of light, Phos,
throughout the entire ordeal of his exile, a role best defined by
the word noifjL-qv, the “shepherd,” the watcher, the guide. This
is precisely a word which calls to mind both the prologue of the
most famous of the Hermetic texts and that of a Christian text
which is perhaps its echo. In each case the sequence of episodes
is the same: first the visionary’s meditation, his withdrawal to
the center of himself, the moment of dream or ecstasy inter¬
mediate between waking and sleep; then the apparition and
the interrogation; then the recognition. In the same way the
Nous appears before Hermes while “his bodily senses were held
in bondage” during a deep sleep. It seems to him that a being
of enormous size approaches, calls him by name and asks:

“What dost thou wish to hear and see, and to learn and know
through thought?” “ But thou, who art thou?” “I am Poimander,
the Nous with absolute sovereignty. I know what thou wishest and
1 am with thee everywhere . . .” Suddenly everything opened be¬
fore me in an instant, and I saw a boundless vision, everything
having become serene and joyous light, and having seen this light,
behold 1 was filled with love for it. 26

Referring to the Coptic term from which the name Poimander
is derived, it can be understood as the heavenly Nous, as the
shepherd or as the witness, but it is surely the same vision wit¬
nessed by those of the Iranian Spirituals who speak sometimes
of Perfect Nature, as in Sohravardi’s Hermes, sometimes of the
witness in Heaven, of the suprasensory personal Guide, as in
the works of Najm Kobra and his school.

At one time the Canon of Christian Scriptures included a
charming little book, the Shepherd of Hernias, especially rich in
symbolic visions; today this little book, exiled like Phos in per¬
son, finds a place only in the Canon of ideas of personal religion
where it appropriately belongs beside the Acts of Thomas. Her¬
nias is at home, seated on his bed in a state of deep meditation.
Suddenly a strange-looking personage enters, sits down at his
side and announces: I have been sent by the Most Holy Angel
to live beside thee all the days of thy life.” Hermas thinks that
the apparition is trying to tempt him:

§ 2 . The Nous of Hermes and the Shepherd oj Hernias

“Who art thou then? For I know to whom I have been en
trusted.” Then he said to me: “Dost thou not recognize me?"
“No.” “I am the Shepherd to whose care thou hast been en¬
trusted.” And while he spoke, his aspect changed , and behold I rec¬
ognized the one to whom I had been entrusted , 27

Whether or not one is willing to see in the prologue of Hermas
a Christian replica to the Hermetic Poimander, the fact re¬
mains that Christology was not originally quite what it later be¬
came. It is not at all by chance that in the little book of Hermas
the expressions “Son of God,” “Archangel Michael,” “Most
Holy Angel,” and “Magnificent Angel” are interchangeable.
The vision of Hermas goes back to the conceptions dominated
by the figure of Christos-Angelos , and the situation thus defined
offers the following analogy of relationships: the shepherd of
Hermas is related to the Magnificent Angel as, in Sohravardi,
the Perfect Nature of Hermes is related to the Angel Gabriel,
the Angel of Humanity, the Holy Spirit.

The theme of Christos-Angelos is also the theme of Christus-
pastor, so well illustrated in primitive Christian art, where
Christ is represented by the figure of Hermes Creophoros (with a
lamb on his shoulders, his head haloed by the seven planets,
the sun and the moon at his sides), or as Attis, with a shepherd’s
staff and a flute, viewed both in meditation and mystical ex¬
perience (Psalm 23 and John 10:11-16) as a true daimon pare-
dros, a personal protector, everywhere accompanying and lead¬
ing the one in his care, as Poimander says: “I am with thee
everywhere.” 28 Hermas’ exclamation on recognizing “the one
to whom he has been entrusted” seems to allude to a spiritual
pact concluded at the time of an initiation. Then also we are re¬
minded of the specifically Manichean expression of the
twofold theme: of Christ as the “Heavenly Twin” of Mani and
of the “form of light” which each of the Elect receives on the
day when he renounces the powers of this world. The conjunc¬
tion of these two themes introduces us to the heart of the pre-
Islamic Iranian representations; their later recurrences are
evidence of the persistence of the archetype whose exemplifi¬
cations always reproduce the same situation: the conjoining of
guide of light with man of light effected in terms of orientation
toward a primordial Orient which is not simply the geographic
east.

II. The Man of Light and His Guide

3. Fravarti and Walkyrie

The Zoroastrian religion of ancient Iran offers us the
homologue or rather the perfect, classic exemplification of what
the Hermetic figure of Perfect Nature or of the shepherd heralds
and represents. However, in analyzing it, one must beware of
the difficulties of a twofold task. In the first place Perfect Na¬
ture as guide and heavenly partner of the man of light has
heretofore appeared to us as essentially immune to any con¬
tamination by the Darkness. Is there not however a joint re¬
sponsibility? As soon as it is clearly stated, a second question
follows: what if the man of light fails to maintain his effort and
falls victim to the Darkness, what if Phos is finally captured and
overcome by the earthly, carnal Adam? This question finds an
answer first in the sequence of events in Zoroastrian individual
eschatology and again in the interpretation of the colored
photisms by Najm Kobra and his school, according to whether
the colors unveil or on the contrary conceal the suprasensory
personal Guide. To guard against any possible misunderstand¬
ing, let us say immediately that what these answers show is that
the act of seeing changes according to whether it is the act of
the man of light, Phos, or on the contrary the act of the carnal
and maleficent Adam who, by projecting his own shadow on
the heavenly Figure and by interposing thus this shadow, is
himself the one that makes this Figure invisible to himself, that
dis-figures it. It is within man’s power to betray the pact, to cast
a darkened look on the whiteness of the world of light, thereby
hiding it from his own gaze, but this is the limit of his power,
and this holds true in the case of the shahid in Sufism as well as
of the eschatological figure oiDaena in Zoroastrianism.

In the second place, we shall have to define the relationship
between two figures that are of equal value as archetypes, those
which are designated respectively as Fravarti and Daena. We
cannot go deeply into this theme here, but must confine our¬
selves to indicate how the problem arises and how certain texts
allow us to foresee a solution in accordance with the schema
verified up to now.

The Fravartis 29 are, in Mazdean cosmogony, feminine en¬
tities, heavenly archetypes of all the beings composing the Cre¬
ation of light. Each being having passed from the heavenly or

§ 3 . Fravarti and Walkyrie

subtle ( menok ) state to the material and visible state (getik , a ma¬
terial state which in the Mazdean conception implies by itself
neither evil nor darkness, the latter being proper to the
Ahrimanian counter-powers, which are themselves a spiritual
order)—each being has his fravarti in the heavenly world which
assumes the role of his guardian angel. What is more, all the
Celestial beings, gods, angels and archangels, even Ohrmazd
himself, have their respective fravarti. Syzygies of light, “light
upon light.” Ohrmazd reveals to his prophet Zarathustra that
without the concurrence and assistance of the Fravartis he
would not have been able to protect his Creation of light
against the assault of the counter-creation of Ahriman. Now,
the very idea of this warfare is dramatically unfolded when we
come to the Fravartis of human beings. In the prelude to the
millenniums of the period of mixture, Ohrmazd offered them
the choice from which their entire destiny originates: they
could either live in the celestial world sheltered from the rav¬
ages of Ahriman, or else descend to earth there to be incar¬
nated in material bodies and struggle against the counter¬
powers of Ahriman in the material world. 30 Their answer to
this proposal was the yes which gives their name its full mean¬
ing, most significantly for our purpose: those who have chosen. In
practice the fravarti incarnated in the terrestrial world finally
became identified in religious representations purely and sim¬
ply with the soul.

But then the question inevitably arises: how to conceive of
the bi-dimensional structure characteristic of the beings of
light, if the Fravartis “in person,” the heavenly archetypes, by
descending to earth, are identified with the earthly “dimen¬
sion”? In other words, if, in the case of humans, the archetype
or angel, on leaving the high ramparts of heaven, is the terres¬
trial person himself, does he not in his turn need some guard¬
ian angel, a celestial reduplication of his being? It seems that
Mazdean philosophy has in fact entertained this question. One
solution might be in some way to conceive of the earthly union
of Fravarti and soul as one in which the former remains im¬
mune from all Ahrimanian contamination. 31 However, when
we consider the fundamental situation that is the basis for the
entire meaning of human life as it is experienced once the
Fravarti and the soul are actually identified, the question is

II. The Man of Light and His Guide

much too complex for a solution to be found in a mere
philological inventory of existing texts.

A philosophical approach is itself called for by the es¬
chatological intervention of Daena (an Avestan name, whose
form in middle Iranian or Pehlevi is Den). Etymologically she
represents the visionary organ of the soul; ontologically, the
light that makes seeing possible and the light which is seen. She
is the pre-terrestrial vision of the celestial world and is thus
religion and faith avowed, the very faith which was “chosen” by
the Fravarti; she is also the essential individuality, the “celestial”
transcendent “I,” the Figure which, at the dawn of its eternity,
sets the believer face to face with the soul of his soul, because
realization unfailingly corresponds to faith. All the other in¬
terpretations of the personage of Daena culminate in this and
thereafter cease to conflict with each other. Accordingly, there
is the posthumous episode at the entrance to the Chinvat
Bridge, the apparition of the “heavenly maiden,” a primordial
Figure, who is at the same time witness, judge, and retribution:
“Then who art thou, whose beauty outshines all other beauty
ever contemplated in the terrestrial world?” “I am thine own
Daena. I was loved, thou hast made me more loved still. I was
beautiful, thou hast made me still more beautiful,” and embrac¬
ing her devotee, she leads him into the Abode-of-Hymns
(Garotman). This post mortem dialogue again reminds us of the
reciprocity of the Giving-Birth/Being-Born relationship
analyzed above. In contrast, he who has betrayed the pact con¬
cluded prior to existence in this world sees himself in the pres¬
ence of an atrocious figure, his own negativity, a caricature of
his celestial humanity which he has himself mutilated, extermi¬
nated: a human abortion cut off from its fravarti, which is to say
a man without a Daena. The Daena remains what she is in the
world of Ohrmazd; what the man sees who has cut himself off
from her, who has made her invisible to himself, is fittingly his
own shadow, his own Ahrimanian darkness, instead of his celes¬
tial mirror of light. This is the dramatic meaning of Mazdean
anthropology.

A Mazdean text giving the best solution of the complex
situation regarding the physiology of the man of light suggests
to us a trilogy of the soul, that is, of the spiritual or subtle or¬
ganism of man (his menokih), independent of his material physi-

§ 3 . Fravarti and Walkyrie

cal organism. 32 Firstly is the “Soul on the way” ( ruvan-i rets), that

is, the one that is met on the way to the Chinvat Bridge, which,
eschatologically and esctatically, is the threshold of the beyond,
linking the center of the world with the cosmic or psycho-cosmic
mountain. There can be no doubt, therefore, that this indeed
refers to Daena guiding the soul in the ascent leading to the
northernmost of heights, the “Abode-of-Hymns,” the region of
the infinite Lights. 33 And then there is the soul referred to in
the text as “the soul outside of the body” ( ruvan-i beron tan), and
finally the soul which is “the soul in the body” ( ruvan-i tan).
These latter two descriptions correspond to two aspects of the
same soul, that is of the Fravarti incarnated in a terrestrial or¬
ganism, ruling the latter like an army commander (the Es-
pahbad of the Ishraqiyun, the hegemonikon of the Stoics), and
sometimes escaping from the body in dream or in ecstatic an¬
ticipation to meet, during this fleeting exodus, the “Soul on the
way,” that is, the Daena who guides it, inspires it, and comforts

it.

The totality represented by their bi-unity is therefore “light
upon light”; it can never be a composite of Ohrmazdian light
and Ahrimanian darkness, or in psychological terms, of con¬
sciousness and its shadow. It can be said that the Fravarti iden¬
tified with the terrestrial soul is related to the angel Daena in
the same way as Hermes is related to Perfect Nature, Phos to
his guide of light, Hermas to his “shepherd,” the exiled prince
to the Robe of light. There is additional confirmation in that
the Iranian theme is highly reminiscent of Tobias and the
Angel. The theme is inexhaustibly fruitful, for it expresses a
fundamental human experience; wherever it is experienced
the same symptom reappears, telling of the feeling of indi¬
vidual transcendence prevailing against all the coercion and
collectivization of the person. Therefore it has homologues
both in the religious universes related to that of the ancient
Iranian religion, and in those of its successors, reactivating and
transvaluating the fundamental concepts.

In Mazdean terms, Daena-Fravarti, as the pre-existential
fate of man, represents and is the holder of his xvarnah; in
order to convey very briefly the full significance of this specifi¬
cally Mazdean notion, it is best to recall the twofold Greek
equivalent which it was given: light of glory (Soija) and fate

II. The Man of Light and His Guide

(tvxt?). Now here precisely we have a representation that brings
the Iranian and the Nordic theogony into accord. In both there
are similar visions of celestial feminine entities bearing and
keeping the power and destiny of a man: Fravartis and Wal-
kyries. Perhaps these figures will finally give the lie to the au¬
stere critics who consider that to associate feminine features
with the Angel makes the latter “effeminate.” Such criticism in
fact presupposes complete incapacity to conceive of the power
in question; having lost the meaning of the Angel, man without
a fravarti (which may be the state of mankind throughout an
entire epoch) can no longer imagine anything but a caricature
of this figure. In any case the theme of comparative research
consociating Fravartis and Walkyries, would reveal all its poten¬
tialities only on condition of searching, even of calling, for its
reflowering in the course of time. We recall here a conversation
with the late Gerhard van der Leeuw, who himself, as a good
phenomenologist, could do justice to Richard Wagner on this
point. As he pointed out, and as we wholly agreed, though
Wagner treated the ancient Sagas in a very personal manner,
he at least had a penetrating and subtle comprehension of the
ancient Germanic beliefs. In the figure of Briinnhilde he
created a beautiful and moving figure of an Angel, “Wotan’s
thought,” a soul sent forth by God; vis-a-vis the hero she is
certainly the authentic Fylgja, holding his power and fate in her
hand, her apparition always signifying the imminence of the
beyond: “Who sees me bids farewell to the daylight of this life.
Thous hast seen the fiery gaze of the Walkyrie; now thou must
depart with her.” 34 In the same way the Iranian ecstatic meets
Daena only on the road to the Chinvat Bridge, on the threshold
of the beyond; Hermes meets his Perfect Nature only in a mo¬
ment leading up to the supreme ecstasy.

Any rationalist interpretation would go astray here in re¬
ducing this Figure to an allegory, on the grounds that it “per¬
sonifies” the act and action of man. By no means is it an allegor¬
ical construct, but a primordial Image thanks to which the
seeker perceives a world of realities which is neither the world
of the senses nor the world of abstract concepts. This power
from the depths necessarily recurs not only, as we have seen, in
the “oriental theosophy” of SohravardI, but even in the works
of certain commentators on the Qoran (in Tabari’s great Tafsir

§4. The Heavenly Twin (Mandeism and Manicheism)

on sura 10:9 there is to be found word for word the A vest an
episode of the post mortem meeting with Daena), and more sys¬
tematically still in Ismaelian Shl’ite gnosis. Ismaelian an¬
thropology represents the earthly human condition as a boun¬
dary state between two things: potential angel or potential de¬
mon. At the climactic point, Ismaelian anthropology spontane¬
ously links up again with the Zoroastrian representations. And
indeed, it is the classical Mazdean trilogy that Nasiroddin TusI
reproduces in speaking of what becomes of the faithful adept
after death: “His thought becomes an Angel proceeding from
the archetypal world, his speech becomes a spirit proceeding
from this Angel, his action becomes a body proceeding from this
spirit.” Once again in the same way, the vision of Daena at the
Chinvat Bridge can be recognized feature for feature, this time
in “the Angel in loveable and beautiful form who becomes the
companion of the soul for all eternity. 35 And thus the gnosis of
Islamic Iran 36 only serves to reactivate the features of a Figure
who is likewise the pre-eminent figure in Mandeism and in
Manicheism.

4. The Heavenly Twin (Mandeism and Manicheism)

In Mandean gnosis, every being in the physical universe has its
counterpart in the heavenly Earth of Mshunia Kushta, inha¬
bited by the descendants of a mystical Adam and Eve (Adam
kasia, Eva kasia). Every being has his archetypal Figure (mabda’ =
dmutha) there, and the latter sometimes communicates with its
earthly counterpart (as for example in the episode of the girl
awakened and warned by “her sister in Mshunia Kushta”). After
the exitus at death, the earthly person abandons his body and
takes on the subtle body of his heavenly Alter Ego, while the
latter, rising to a higher plane, assumes a body of pure light.
When the human soul has completed its cycle of purifications
and when the scales of Abathur Muzania bear witness to its
perfect purity, it enters the world of Light and is reunited with
its eternal Partner: “I go towards my likeness/And my likeness
goes toward me;/He embraces me and holds me close/As if I
had come out of prison.” 37

Similarly, the heavenly Partner (qarin) or Twin ( taw’am) is
the dominant figure in the prophetology and soteriology of

II. The Man of Light and His Guide

Manicheism. It is the angel who appears to ManI when he is
twenty-four years old and announces that it is time for him to
manifest himself and bid men hear his doctrine. 38 “Greetings
to you, ManI, from myself and from the lord who sent me to
you.” The last words of the dying ManI alluded to this:”I con¬
templated my Double with my eyes of light.” Later, in their
psalms, his community sing: “We bless your partner-Com-
panion of light, Christ, the source of our good.” 39 ManI, like
Thomas in those same Acts which include the Song of the
Pearl, has Christos Angelos as his heavenly Twin, who informs
him of his vocation, just as the prophet Mohammed was to re¬
ceive the revelation from the Angel Gabriel (and the identifica¬
tion Christos-Gabriel is by no means unknown in gnosis.) Now,
Christos Angelos is the same in relation to ManI (in eastern
Manicheism the Virgin of light is substituted for Christos
Angelos), as is the taw’am, the “Heavenly Twin,” in relation to
each of the Elect respectively and individually. It is the Form of
light which the Elect receive when they enter the Manichean
community through the act of solemn renunciation of the
powers of this world. At the passing away of one of the Elect, a
psalm is sung in praise of “thy heavenly Partner who faileth
not.” In Catharism it is he who is called the Spiritus sanctus or
angelicas of the particular soul, as carefully distinguished from
the Spiritus principalis, the Holy Spirit referred to in invoking
the three persons named in the Trinity.

That is why, since Manvahmed (the archangel Vohu Manah
of Zoroastrianism, the Nous) is without doubt according to the
Eastern texts the element of light, and as such both outside and
inside the soul, the situation can be correctly defined only by
preserving the four terms required by the analogy pointed out
above. The great Manvahmed is to the totality of the souls of
light (the Columna gloriae) what each Manvahmed (not the col¬
lectivity) is to its terrestrial “I.” Here again it can be said that
each Manvahmed (or Spiritus principalis) as in SohravardI Perfect
Nature is related to Gabriel, the Holy Ghost and Angel of hu¬
manity. This Form of light thus fulfills the same function as
Perfect Nature. Each one of the Elect is guided by it through¬
out life and beyond; it is the supreme theophany. It is the
“guide who initiates him by causing conversion {fieTavoiy) to
penetrate his heart; it is the Aous-light coming from above, the

§ 4 . The Heavenly Twin (Mandeism and Manicheism)

ray of the sacrosanct c^wcrrrjp which comes to illuminate,
purify, and guide the soul toward the Earth of light (Terra
lucida) from which it came at the beginning of time, and to
which it will return, reassuming its original form.” 40 This wise
guide is the Form of light which is manifested in extremis to the
Elect, “the image of light in the semblance of the soul,” the
Angel bearing the “diadem and crown”; it is, for each of the
Elect, the heavenly Sophia or Virgin of light (the dominant
figure also in the book of the Pistis Sophia). And Manicheism
explicitly gives this figure its Zoroastrian name, thus confirm¬
ing the Zoroastrian vision where the Daena of a being of light
comes to meet him after death in the form of a “maiden who
guides him.” 41

All we have just tried to bring together here—too rapidly,
too allusively—should be completed by reference to still other
texts, more accessible no doubt than those alluded to above, as
for instance the passages in th ePhaedo and Timaeus of Plato and
the commentary on these in the fourth chapter of the third
Ennead, in which Plotinus speaks of the daimon paredros into
whose care we are given, and who is the guide of the soul
throughout life and beyond death. Mention should also be
made of the beautiful development of the same theme in
Apuleius ( De Deo Socratis, 16), dealing with the higher group of
daimons to each of whom the care of one human individual is
entrusted and who serves as its witness ( testis ) and guardian
(custos). No less essential for our purpose are the texts in which
Philo of Alexandria calls the Nous the true man, the man within
man. We experience this homo verus who dwells in the soul of
each of us, now as an archon and king, now as a judge award¬
ing the crown after life’s battles; on occasion he plays the part
of a witness (p.dprv?), sometimes even of a prosecutor. 42 Fi¬
nally, mention must be made of the notion of sakshin in two
Upanishads. 43 “The man in man” is also the eyewitness, look¬
ing on at, but not involved in, not sullied by the actions and
inner states of the man, whether in the waking state or the
dream state, in deep sleep or in ecstasy. “Two friends with
beautiful wings, closely entwined, embracing one and the same
tree; one eats its sweet fruits; the other does not eat, but looks
on.” The sakshin is the guide; the human being contemplates it
and is united with it to the degree that all his defects are ef-

II. The Man of Light and His Guide

faced in it; it is the homologue of Perfect Nature, of the shahid
as the form of light.

The word “witness” (/lapTV s, testis, shahid) has been men¬
tioned several times, which already suggests what all these re¬
currences of the same Figure have in common—from the
Zoroastrian vision of Daena to the contemplation of the shahid
in Sufism. Where this witness of contemplation becomes, as in
Najm Kobra, the theophanic witness of what is seen in vision,
the function its name implies is made even clearer: according
to whether the soul in vision sees it as light, or on the contrary
“sees” only darkness, the soul itself testifies, by its vision, for or
against its own spiritual realization. Thus the “witness in
Heaven” is called the “scales of the suprasensory” ( mizan al-
ghayb)\ the beauty of the being who is the witness of contempla¬
tion is likewise a means of weighing, since it proves the capacity
or incapacity of the soul to perceive beauty as theophany par
excellence.

All these texts converge toward the epiphany of the same
Figure whose very diverse names reveal rather than conceal its
identity: the philosopher’s Angel or Sun, Daena, Perfect Na¬
ture, personal master and suprasensory guide, Sun of the
heart, etc. All these signs of convergence provide the indis¬
pensable context for a study of the phenomenology of the
visionary experience in Iranian Sufism, where perceptions of
colored lights are the manifestation of the personal spiritual
guide (shaykh al-ghayb in Najm Kobra, ostad ghaybi in Semnam).
It was important to show that the examples of this experience
are linked with one and the same type of essentially individual,
personal spiritual initiation. Further, as the reunion of the man
of light and his guide, his heavenly counterpart and the tran¬
scendent “dimension” of his person, this experience has
seemed to us oriented and orienting in a definite direction, to¬
ward those “Earths” whose direction can be suggested only by
symbols—the symbols of the North.

In effect we have tried to show the structure and premises
on which the liberation of the man of light, Prometheus-PAos,
depends. The liberation as an event will now make clearer to us
the orientation on which it depends. We shall need to recognize
to what region the suprasensory guide forming a pair with its
terrestrial “double” belongs, and in what direction it is re-

§4. The Heavenly Twin (Mandeism and Manicheism)

vealed, namely the region and direction from which Phos origi¬
nates and back to which his guide has to lead him. In the writ¬
ings of Najm Kobra, we find again the image of the well into
which the exile of the Sohravardian recital is cast. The effective
emergence from the well begins when a supernatural green light
shines at its mouth. Earlier we learned in SohravardI both the
hour when the event takes place and the direction indicated by
this experience of radical individuation, experienced as a re¬
union with the personal Form of Light. Midnight Sun and
heavenly pole: the symbols of the North taken together will
show us the direction of the mystic Orient, that is, the Orient-
origin, which has to be looked for not on the earthly plani¬
spheres, but at the summit of the cosmic mountain.

I i , MIDNIGHT SUN AND
1 • CELESTIAL POLE

1. The Cosmic North and the “Oriental Theosophy ” of
Sohravardi (1191)

The Avestan term Airyanem Vaejah (Pehlevi Eran-Vej) designates
the cradle and origin of the Aryan-Iranians in the center of the
central keshvar (orbis, zone). Those who have attempted to de¬
termine its position on geographic maps have run into great
difficulties; no convincing solution has been obtained in this
way, for the first and good reason that the problem of locating
it lies in the realm of visionary geography. 44 The data pre¬
sented here relate to a primordial and archetypal Image, that
is, to the primary phenomenon of orientation we referred to at
the outset {supra I, 1). It is this Image that dominates and coor¬
dinates the perception of empirical data; it is not the other way
round, that acquired data, geographical and cultural, produce
the Image. The Image gives physical events their meaning; it
precedes them, it is not they that give rise to it. This in no way
implies that it is a question of mere “subjectivity” in today’s
loose usage of this word. It indeed refers to an organ of per¬
ception to which a definite plane or region of being corre¬
sponds as its object, a region which is represented in a later
elaboration of Iranian philosophy as the heavenly Earth of
Hurqalya. To orient ourselves personally, it will be best to inquire

III. Midnight Sun and Celestial Pole

first of all into the events that take place in Eran-Vej, of which
the pertinent ones are as follows:

Eran-Vej is the place of the memorable liturgies celebrated
by Ohrmazd himself, by the heavenly beings, by the legendary
heroes. It was in Eran-Vej that Yima the beautiful, Yima the
dazzingly beautiful, the best of mortals, received the command
to construct an enclosure, the var, where the elite of all beings,
the most beautiful, the most gracious, would gather to be saved
from the deadly winter unleashed by the demonic powers so
that they might one day repeople a transfigured world. ( Ven -
didad 2:21 ff.) This var or paradise of Yima is like a walled city,
with houses, storerooms, and ramparts. It has a gate and lumi¬
nescent windows which themselves secrete an inner light within, for
it is illuminated both by uncreated and created lights. Its inhab¬
itants see the stars, moon, and sun rise and set only once a year,
and that is why a year seems to them only a day. Every forty
years, from each pair of humans, another couple is born, con¬
sisting of a male and a female. “And all of these beings live the
most beautiful of lives in the unchanging war of Yima.”

Certainly we might be tempted to hear an echo in this de¬
scription of a primaeval sojourn of the Iranians in a geographic
far north, the memory of a dawn of thirty days preceding an
annual sunrise. However, the indications are stronger that it in
fact refers to the threshold of a supranatural beyond: there are
uncreated lights; a world that secretes its own light, as in
Byzantine mosaics the gold illuminates the enclosed space be¬
cause the glass cubes are reinforced with gold leaf; a shadow¬
less country peopled with beings of light who have reached
spiritual heights inaccessible to earthly beings. They are truly
beings of the beyond; where the shadow which holds the light
captive ends, there the beyond begins, and the very same mys¬
tery is enciphered in the symbol of the North. In the same way
the Hyperboreans symbolize men whose soul has reached such
completeness and harmony that it is devoid of negativity and
shadow; it is neither of the east nor of the west. Just as in In¬
dian mythology also we hear of the people of the Uttara-kurus,
the people of the northern sun, who have fully and ideally in¬
dividualized features; a people composed of twins linked to¬
gether, typifying a state of completeness expressed also by the
form and the dimensions of their country: an earthly paradise

§i. The Cosmic North

in the Far North whose shape, like the var of Yima, like the
emerald cities Jabalqa and Jabarsa, like the Heavenly
Jerusalem, is a perfect square.

Other events in Eran-Vej: Zarathustra (Zoroaster), having
reached the age of thirty, yearns for Eran-Vej and sets out with
a number of male and female companions. The nature of the
spaces they traverse, the date of the migration (homologous, in
the annual cycle of the calendar, with the dawn of a mil-
lenium ) 45 show us something more and better than a positivist
history: what we have here is a series of hierophanies. To long
for Eran-Vej is to long for the Earth of visions in medio mundi\ it
is to reach the center, the heavenly Earth, where the meeting
takes place with the Holy Immortals, the divine heptad of
Ohrmazd and his archangels. The mountain of visions is the
psycho-cosmic mountain, the cosmic mountain seen as
homologous to the human microcosm. It is the “Mountain of
dawns” from whose summit the Chinvat Bridge springs forth
to span the passage to the beyond, at the very spot where the
auroral meeting of the angel Daena and her earthly ego takes
place. Here, therefore, the Archangel Vohu-Manah (Persian,
Bahman, “Excellent Thought,” e’vvota) enjoins the visionary-
prophet to cast off his robe, that is, his material body and or¬
gans of sensory perception, because in Eran-Vej it is the subtle
body of light that is the seat and organ of events. And it is
there, in medio mundi and at the summit of the soul, that the
Zarathustrian seed of light is preserved, which is the Xvarnah of
the three Saoshyants, the future Saviors who by a cosmic liturgi¬
cal act will bring about the transfiguration of the world.

These same categories of the transcendental active Imagi¬
nation give form to the perceptions through which something
in the nature of a “physiology of the man of light” is revealed.
By making psycho-cosmic homologation possible, this imagina¬
tion has served as the basis of symbolic constructions, desig¬
nated by the term mandala, which serve to support the mental
realizations achieved through meditation. Some of these con¬
structions were gigantic, as we know. The famous ziqqurat of
Babylonia typified the cosmic mountain with seven stories
whose colors corresponded respectively to those of the seven
Heavens; thus allowing the pilgrim, ritually, to climb to the
summit, that is, to the culminating point which is the cosmic

III. Midnight Sun and Celestial Pole

north, the pole round which the earth revolves. In each case,
the local zenith could be identified with the heavenly pole.
Stupas (as in Borobudur) are constructions of the same kind;
their symbolic architecture typified the outer covering of the
universe and the secret, inner world whose summit is the
center of the cosmos. Lastly, involving the same homologies,
there is the microcosmic temple, called by the Ishraqlyun the
“temple of light” ( haykal al-nur), the human organism with its
seven centers or subtle organs: the seven latlfa (infra VI, 1), or
inner Heavens, resting one upon another, each with its own
color, each identified as the microcosmic seat of one of the
great prophets. Man and the world are thus wholly repre¬
sented as evolving around a vertical axis; from this viewpoint,
the idea of a horizontal linear evolution would appear totally
devoid of meaning and direction— unoriented. The Abode-of-
Hymns, the Earth of Hurqalya, the Heavenly Jerusalem, de¬
scend progressively in direct relation to the ascent of the man of
light. The space enclosed in the 360-degree sphere is the
homologue which on the cosmic scale materializes a secret,
supernatural corpus mysticum of beings and organs of light.

Eran-Vej, the paradise of Yima, the spiritual realm of subtle
bodies, has been a constant and absorbing theme of Iranian
meditation for the adepts of Zarathustra in the distant past, the
adepts of the Sohravardian theosophy of Light, and thinkers of
the Shaykhi school in Shfite Iran. The idea of the center of the
world, the legendary theme of the central keshvar determining
the orientation of the other six keshvars arranged around it and
later separated from one another by the cosmic ocean, has had
a continuous philosophic development. The most important
phase of this development is perhaps the moment when, in
Sohravardl’s “oriental theosophy”, the Platonic Ideas are inter¬
preted in terms of Zoroastrian angelology.

Between the world of pure spiritual Lights (Luces victoriales,
the world of the “Mothers” in the terminology of Ishraq) and
the sensory universe, at the boundary of the ninth Sphere (the
Sphere of Spheres) there opens a mundus imaginalis which is a
concrete spiritual world of archetype-Figures, apparitional
Forms, Angels of species and of individuals; by philosophical
dialectics its necessity is deduced and its plane situated; vision
of it in actuality is vouchsafed to the visionary apperception of

§i. The Cosmic North

the active Imagination. The essential connection in Sohravardi
which leads from philosophical speculation to a metaphysics of
ecstasy also establishes the connection between the angelology
of this neo-Zoroastrian Platonism and the idea of the mundus
imaginalis. This, Sohravardi declares, is the world to which the
ancient Sages alluded when they affirmed that beyond the sen¬
sory world there exists another universe with a contour and
dimensions and extension in a space, although these are not
comparable with the shape and spatiality as we perceive them
in the world of physical bodies. It is the “eighth” keshvar, the
mystical Earth of Hurqalya with emerald cities; it is situated on
the summit of the cosmic mountain, which the traditions
handed down in Islam call the mountain of Qaf. 46

There is ample supporting evidence that this was indeed
the mountain formerly called Alborz (Elburz, in Avestan Haraiti
Bareza), geographically, the name today designates the chain of
mountains in northern Iran. But this orographical fact is irrel¬
evant to the visionary geography of the ancient legends which
tell us of the marvelous race inhabiting the mountain’s cities: a
race as ignorant of the earthly Adam as of Iblis-Ahriman, a
race similar to the Angels, androgynous perhaps, since without
sexual differentiation (see the twins of the paradise of Yima
and of the Uttara-kurus), and hence untroubled even by desire
for posterity. The minerals in their soil and the walls of their
cities secrete their own light (like the var of Yima); they have no
need of any outer light, whether from the sun, the moon, the
stars, or the physical Heavens. These concordant signs estab¬
lish the heavenly topography of this supernatural Earth on the
boundary of the Sphere above the planetary Heavens and the
Heaven of the innumerable Fixed Stars, which encompasses
the entire sensory universe. The mountain of Qaf is this
Sphere of Spheres surrounding the totality of the visible cos¬
mos; an emerald rock, casting its reflection over the whole of the
mountain of Qaf, is the keystone of this celestial vault, the pole.

Now, in the Recital of the Occidental Exile, whose very title
points to the fundamental meaning of the “oriental
theosophy,” this is precisely the mountain which the exile must
climb when he is summoned at last to return home, to return to
himself. He has to reach the summit, the Emerald Rock that rises
up before him like the translucent wall of a mystical Sinai;

III. Midnight Sun and Celestial Pole

there, as we have already seen (supra II, 1), on the threshold of
the pleroma of Light, the pilgrim meets his Perfect Nature, his
Holy Ghost, in an ecstasy of anticipation corresponding, in the
Mazdean dramaturgy, to the meeting in the dawn with the ce¬
lestial Person, at the entrance to the Chinvat Bridge. This
threshold opens onto the “climate of the Soul,” a world made
wholly of a subtle “matter” of light, intermediate between the
world of the Cherubinic pure Lights and the world of physis,
which includes corruptible sublunar matter as well as the astral
matter of the incorruptible Heavens. This universe of physis in
its entirety forms the cosmic Occident ; the other universe is the
Orient, which begins at the climate of the Soul, the “eighth”
climate.

Thus the paradisal Earth of Light, the world of Hurqalya, is
an Orient intermediate between the “lesser Orient,” which is
the soul’s rising to the highest point of its desire and conscious¬
ness, and the “greater Orient,” which is the further spiritual
Orient, the pleroma of pure Intelligences, the soul’s rising to
supra-consciousness. The twofold symbolic meaning of the mid¬
night sun ( supra I, 2) corresponds to this structure of Orient
rising upon Orient. Indeed, since the eighth climate, the celes¬
tial Earth of Hurqalya, is said to be in the Orient, and since the
direction indicated to us is that of the cosmic north, the “sum¬
mit of the world,” it certainly does not refer to the East as we
are accustomed to locate it on the terrestrial map. Here the
Orient is oriented toward the center which is the topmost point
of the cosmic dome, the pole : it is the Emerald Rock at the
summit of the mountain of Qaf. To reach it one has to succeed
in climbing the mountain just as the pilgrim reaches it in the
Recital of the Exile, by obeying a summons identical to the sum¬
mons received by the exiled prince in the Song of the Pearl in the
Acts of Thomas (supra II, 1). This orientation pertains to a
visionary geography oriented to the “climate of the Soul,” the
place of the emerald cities, illuminated by the brilliance of the
inner light that they themselves secrete. This Suprasensory
Orient governs the primary phenomenon of the Gnostic’s orien¬
tation toward his country of origin. The Orient-origin identified
with the center, with the heavenly north pole, heralds access to
the beyond, where vision becomes real history, the history of
the soul, and where every visionary event symbolizes a spiritual

§/. The Cosmic North

state; or, as the Ishraqiyun say, it is the climate “where what is
bodily becomes spirit and what is spiritual acquires a body.” 47

Northern Light, original light, pure inner light coming
neither from the east nor the west: the symbols of the north
open spontaneously around that central intuition which is the
intuition of the center. The exodus from the well, the ascent
that leads to the Emerald Rock and toward the angel, Perfect
Nature, begins in the darkness of night. The journey is marked
by the vicissitudes which typify the states and the perils of the
soul undergoing this initiatic test. The midnight sun bursts into
flame at the approach to the summit—the primordial Image of
inner light that figured so prominently in the ritual of the mys¬
tery religions (see supra II, 1: the light carried by Hermes into
the heart of the underground chamber). This is how it comes
to pass for Hermes, the hero of the eschatological ecstasy de¬
scribed by Sohravard!, from which we have already gathered
evidence (supra II, 1) in support of the hermetic tradition, and
which relates the vision wherein Hermes recognized his Perfect
Nature in the beautiful and mysterious spiritual entity which
manifested itself to him.

SohravardI gives more particulars concerning this vision in
one of his major works. 48 In this case, Hermes kept vigil all
night long, meditating in the “temple of light” (haykal al-niir, his
own microcosm), but a sun shone in this night. When the “pil¬
lar of dawn” burst forth, that is to say, when the being of light
broke down the walls of the “temple” that enclosed him (here
we are reminded of the columna Gloriae of Manicheism in which
reascent of the elements of light coincides with the descent of
the Cross of Light), Hermes saw an Earth being swallowed up
and with it the “cities of the oppressors” drowning in the divine
wrath. This downfall of the sensory, material world, of the Oc¬
cident of corruptible matter and its laws, recalls the scene de¬
scribed in the Recital of the occidental exile: here, the arrival at
the cosmic north, at the Emerald Rock, threshold of the beyond,
is heralded by the outburst of light of the “midnight sun” (as in
Apuleius: media node vidi solem coruscantem). The midnight sun
is the illuminatio matutina, the brilliance of dawn rising in the
Orient-origin of the soul, that is, at the pole, while the cities of
the oppressors are being swallowed up. Here the aurora con-
surgens rising at the Emerald Rock, at the keystone of the

III. Midnight Sun and Celestial Pole

heavenly dome, is the aurora borealis in the Heaven of the soul.
Before this unknown horizon Hermes was full of fear and
cried out: “Save me, you who have given birth to me!” (In
Sohravardi’s psalm, as we recall, he appeals to his Perfect Na¬
ture in the very same way.) And Hermes hears this answer:
“Seize hold of the cable of the ray of light and rise to the bat¬
tlements of the Throne.” He climbs up, and lo! under his feet
were an Earth and a Heaven. A Heaven and an Earth where,
with Sohravardi’s commentators (Shahrazori and Ibn Kam-
muna), we recognize the mundus imaginalis, the autonomous
world of the archetype-Figures, the Earth of Hurqalya shel¬
tered by the battlements of the Throne which is the Sphere of
Spheres, the climate of the Soul revolving around the heavenly
pole. In the Sabean texts of the pseudo-Majritl we also read a
description of the Perfect Nature as the philosopher’s Sun; and
Najm Kobra will refer to the “witness in Heaven” as the sup-
rasensory Sun, the Sun of the heart, the Sun of the spirit.

In regard to this Orient-origin, oriented vertically toward
the pole as the threshold of the beyond, where the inner, the
esoteric light shines in the divine Night, the “literal,” geo¬
graphic East would then typify the daylight of exoteric con¬
sciousness, as powerless in opposition to the divine Night of the
Ineffable as against the nocturnal depths of the dark Psyche;
hence the confusion between these two nights, since by its very
nature this Day cannot co-exist with Night; it can exist only in
the inevitable alternation of days and nights, of rise and de¬
cline. But here we have another light, that of the Emerald
Rock. (In Isma’ilian Shi’ite gnosis, another symbolism will al¬
lude to the “sun rising in the west,” from the side of night, but
there it will refer specifically to the Imam who is the pole, the
keystone and axis of the esoteric hierarchy.) The “midnight
sun” typifies the inner light, that which is secreted by the abode
itself (as by the var of Yima), in its own secret way. That is why,
as we said, this suggests a new way of evaluating the Orient-
Occident contrast: here “Nordic” man is no longer the nordic
man of ethnology, but is the “Oriental” in the polar sense of the
word, that is, the exiled Gnostic, the stranger who refuses the
yoke of the “oppressors” because he has been sent to this world
for a purpose which they cannot recognize. And that is why we
have already had a premonition of the significance of this fun-

§2. The Cosmic North

damental orientation, guiding vision and actualization in the di¬
rection of an ascent which conflicts with our habitual notions of
dimensions of time, of evolution, of historical actuality.

Is not the sense of all myths of reintegration henceforth af¬
fected by this orientation? For the totality of man’s being, the
transcendent personal dimension he discerns in the northern
light, in the “midnight sun,” is not merely the sum total of
orient and Occident, of left and right, of conscious and uncon¬
scious. The man of light’s ascent causes the shades of the well
where he was held captive to fall back into themselves. Hermes
does not carry his shadow with him; he discards it; for he rises
up, and correspondingly the “cities of the oppressors” sink
down into the abyss. And it is difficult, we must confess, to read
with equanimity certain interpretations of the coincidentia op-
positorum where complementaries and contradictories are ap¬
parently indiscriminately lumped together under the head of
opposita. To deplore that Christianity is centered on a figure of
goodness and light and entirely overlooks the dark side of the
soul would be no less valid an evaluation if applied to Zoroas¬
trianism. But how could reintegration consist in a complicity
between, a “totalization” of Christ and Satan, Ohrmazd and
Ahriman? Even to suggest such a possibility is to overlook the
fact that even under the reign of a figure of light the Satanic
forces remain in operation—those for example who tried to
prevent Hermes’ escape from the depths of the well and his
ascent to the battlements of the Throne. And it is exactly for
this reason that one has to affirm that the relationship of Christ
to Satan, Ohrmazd to Ahriman, is not complementary but con¬
tradictory. Complementary elements can be integrated, but not
contradictory ones.

It would seem that the misunderstanding in the first place
concerns the nature of the Day whose constraints are deplored,
and consequently the remedies called for. From this point of
view the distinction made clear to us by certain Iranian Sufi
masters between luminous Night, or black Light, and unqual¬
ified black, blackness without light ( infra V and VI), is essential
to prevent us from going astray and to keep us oriented toward
the pole. The Day whose constraints are deplored, and whose
ambiguity is obvious because it obeys the demonic law of con¬
straint, is the exoteric Day where ready-made notions are ac-

III. Midnight Sun and Celestial Pole

cepted and taken for granted. Deliverance from it lies in the
esoteric Night of hidden meanings, which is the night of super¬
consciousness, not of unconsciousness; for it is not the
Ahrimanian Night, but the Night Ineffable, the Night of sym¬
bols, which alone can pacify the dogmatic madnesses of Day.
Rational dogmatic excitement and irrational lunacy cannot
compensate for one another. The totality symbolized by the
“midnight sun” is the Deus absconditus and the Angel Logos, or,
in terms of Shl’ite gnosis, th epole, the Imam, which brings light
into the night of the inner world. Nothing short of total dis¬
orientation could result in confusing the night of the Deus
absconditus with the Ahrimanian night, the Angel Logos with a
revelation of Ahriman or a revelation complementary to
Ahriman. That is why the old Iranian Zervanism which has been
so complacently admired on the pretext that it implies a philos¬
ophy of unity transcending dualism, could only appear absurd
and grotesque in the eyes of the Zoroastrians. The word eso-
terism, so often misused, refers to the unavoidable necessity of
expressing the reintegration of the human being in symbols:
luminous night and midnight sun; twins of the paradise of
Yima; the man of light and his guide; the theme of androgyny,
the reunion of Adam and the celestial Sophia, to whom he was
“betrothed in his youth.” But one essential fact has to be re¬
membered: Faust, renovatus in novam infantiam, is reborn “in
Heaven,” where the Sophia aeterna appears; the redemption of
Faust is not a “sum total” of Faust and Mephistopheles. The
counterfeiter, the Antimimon, is not Phos’s guide of light; it
brings contradiction; it is not complementary.

If the diversity of these expressions is stressed here, all too
briefly, it is because of the impression that the orientation re¬
quired in this search by the very nature of its theme and
sources, encounters at every step the same difficulties deriving
from the same confusion or disorientation. This can but pro¬
long and strengthen the laws of the exoteric Day against which
the Sohravardian Hermes exerts his effort to be free, by break¬
ing with the pre-established and generally accepted view. One
cannot concoct “history” out of Hermes’ visions. Nor can
Hermes and the prince of the Song of the Pearl be adapted to a
social context. To attempt to do so is, as it were, to prevent
them from orienting themselves, and from understanding where

§ 1. The Cosmic North

they are, and to make them forget the well into which they have
been thrown. The Daylight turned on them in this way is not
the light of the Emerald Rock, and that is why this Day cannot
enter into combination with the Night of Symbols. The bi-unity
is Hermes and his Perfect Nature, it is not Hermes and the “City
of the oppressors,” nor Hermes and the well into which the
oppressors have thrown him. He does not emerge alone from
this well; still less does he emerge in a crowd and en masse ; he
emerges from it as a pair, that is to say, in the company of the
guide of light, by whatever name, among his many names, he
makes himself recognized.

That is why the possibility of reaching the cosmic north, the
Emerald Rock, is essentially linked to the bi-unitary structure
of human individuality, potentially including a transcendent
dimension of light (Hermes and his Perfect Nature, the Mani-
chean adept and his Form of light, etc.). The powers of doubt
and forgetfulness, under the different names that cover them
up through the ages, the powers of the exoteric Day and the
powers of the Night without light, do all they can to stifle and
annihilate this potentiality. This is why one may no longer even
glimpse the nature of the luminous Night, the black Light spo¬
ken of by certain Sufis, and which is in no way a mixture of
divine Light and demonic shadow. To say that what is below is
an imitation of what is above is not to say that what is below is
what is above. The night of rejected demonic depths, or on the
contrary the horror of the day inspired by the fascination of
these depths—these perhaps are the two impotences to which
occidental man succumbs. It is not by compounding them that
one finds the luminous Night of the “Oriental,” that is to say, of
the “northern man,” nor the night of the intra-divine heights
(infra V and VI).

The stress laid on the symbol of the pole, on the double con¬
stellation of the Bear and the Pole star in the hierognosis of
Sufism, succeeds in convincing us of this. We find here the
same homologation as in the cosmic mountain whose pole is the
culminating point. The same law of psycho-cosmic structure
makes the mental circumambulations around the heart, for
example, homologous to those made around the Temple, and
to the rotation of the heavenly dome about its axis. Projected
on the zenith, the primordial Image of the center that the mystic

III. Midnight Sun and Celestial Pole

experiences in himself, around which he inwardly revolves,
then allows him to perceive the Pole star as a cosmic symbol of
the reality of inner life. Inner sanctuary and Emerald Rock are
then simultaneously the threshold and place of theophanies,
the pole of orientation, the direction from which the guide of
light appears. We shall see him appear in this way in the visions
of a great Sufi master of Shiraz, and it could likewise be
analyzed by a phenomenology of prayer linked to the fact that
the Mandeans, the Sabeans of Harran, the Manicheans, the
Buddhists of Central Asia take the north as the Qibla (the axis
of orientation) of their prayer.

But here again our phenomenology of the north, of the
pole, should preclude any danger of the disorientation which,
as we have just stressed, can manifest as the temptation to con¬
fuse the northern sun, the midnight sun, with a coincidentia op-
positorum, as an artificial isolation of contradictions instead of
complementaries. Since this fictitious conciliation remains in
fact on the exoteric level, the “break away” demanded by the
vertical dimension oriented toward the north is not consum¬
mated. Hermes departs from the “Occident,” but it is not by
carrying his shadow along with him that he rises to the battle¬
ments of the Throne. Because the north, the pole, is “above,” it
allows the recognition of where the shadow is, be it the indi¬
vidual shadow of the lower functions of the psyche, or the collec¬
tive shadow of the “city of the oppressors.” But how could this
justify saying that what makes the shadow visible and shows in
what direction it lies could also be the very same shadow ? Far
from it, what indicates where the shadow is, is characterized as
being itself shadowless. If the cosmic north is the threshold of
the beyond, if it is the paradise of Yima, how could it be the
place of Hell? Hermes rises; he leaves the Infernum in its place,
below him, in the world which he has left. There is neither
ambivalence nor ambiguity; the opposition between Zoroas¬
trianism and Zervanism has been recalled above, and if some¬
thing of the latter survived and bore fruit in the gnosis of Is¬
lam, it was thanks to a shifting of level, a radical alteration of its
dramaturgy, freeing the field precisely for the orientation here
envisioned.

Certainly there are mythological data in which the north

§ /. The Cosmic North

takes on a meaning contrary to that which we are analyzing
here. But there could then be no question of ambivalence un¬
less the subject remained identical. One should therefore have
started by constructing, more or less fictitiously, and by sub¬
stantializing, a collective Psyche, in order to affirm its perma¬
nence and identity in the alternation of its contrary tendencies.
The ambivalence of the symbol of the north would depend on
this one subject, signifying now the threshold of the paradise of
life, now the threshold of darkness and hostile powers. Unfor¬
tunately, would one not thereby fall into the trap of this in¬
vented and complacently accepted picture of the situation? For
what exists in fact, really, concretely and substantially, is not a
collectivity but individual souls, that is, persons each of whom
can help another to find his own way out of the well; but as
soon as there is a wish by some to impose their way on others,
the situation becomes once more that of the “city of the oppres¬
sors” in the Sohravardian tale. This notion of a collective
Psyche, involving the disorientation of symbols, is again only a
result of the forgetting and consequent loss of the ascending
vertical dimension, for which an evolutionary horizontal exten¬
sion is substituted. The vertical dimension is individuation and
sacralization; the other is collectivization and secularization.
The first is a deliverance both from the individual and from
the collective shadow. If Hermes had accepted to remain at the
bottom of the well, he also, we must conclude, would have
taken the cosmic north, the pole,, for Hell. But this is by no
means to say that Heaven is Hell; what he would have per¬
ceived would have been nothing but the collective shadow
projected on the pole and preventing him from seeing it, that
is, from seeing his own person of light (as the unbeliever in the
Chinvat Bridge sees only his own caricature instead of seeing
Daena; as the Sufi novice sees only darkness until the green
light shines at the mouth of the well). If the region of the pole is
what it foretells to the Sufi, it can foretell the contrary only if a
shadow darkens it, the shadow precisely of those who refuse to
make the ascent to which Sufism invites them. To cast off the
shadow is not to return toward the shadow; orientation cannot
be disorientation.

III. Midnight Sun and Celestial Pole

2. Visions of the Pole in Ruzbehan of Shiraz (1209)

Some of the visions described by Ruzbehan of Shiraz in his
Diarium spiritual illustrate the symbolism of the pole in a par¬
ticularly explicit way. 49 In a dream, or rather in a state inter¬
mediate between waking and sleeping, the totality of creatures
is revealed to him as though they were assembled within a
house; there are many lamps which give off a bright light, but a
wall prevents him from reaching them. Then he mounts to the
terrace of the house which is his own dwelling place; there he
finds two very beautiful personages who appear to be Sufi
shaykhs and in whom he recognizes his own image —a very sig¬
nificant detail. Together the three partake of a kind of mystical
repast, consisting of pure wheat bread and oil so subtle that it
was like a pure spiritual substance. Subsequently, one of the
two shaykhs asks Ruzbehan if he knows what this substance
was. As he does not know, the shaykh informs him that it was
“oil from the constellation of the Bear 50 which we gathered for
you.” After emerging from his dream Ruzbehan continues to
meditate upon it, but it took him some time, he confesses, to
understand that there had been in it an allusion to the seven
poles (aqtab , more generally the seven abdal) in the heavenly
pleroma, and that God had dispensed to him the pure sub¬
stance of their mystical station, that is to say, had admitted him
to the rank of the seven masters of initiation and intercessors
who are invisibly apportioned to our world.

Then [he writes], I concentrated my attention on the constel¬
lation of the Bear and I observed that it formed seven apertures
through which God was showing himself to me. My God! I cried,
what is this? He said to me: these are the seven apertures of the
Throne.

Just as Hermes in Sohravardl’s recital is invited to climb to
the battlements of the Throne, so here Ruzbehan, being admit¬
ted to the number of the seven Abdal surrounding the Pole (in
Shfite terms the “hidden Imam”), is introduced to the summit
of the mysterious and invisible spiritual hierarchy, without
which life on earth could not continue to exist. The Idea and
the structure of this mystical hierarchy which dominates Sufi
theosophy and especially, in Shf ism, Shaykhi theosophy, corre¬
spond to the idea and structure of an esoteric astronomy; the
one and the other exemplify the same archetypal Image of the

§2. Visions of the Pole in Ruzbehan of Shiraz (1209)

world. Ruzbehan adds these further details which confirm that
what he perceives in his vision of the pole, of the cosmic north,
is indeed the threshold of the beyond and the place of
theophanies:

Every night [he writes], I continued afterwards to observe
these apertures in Heaven, as my love and ardent desire impelled
me to do. And lo! one night, I saw that they were open, and I saw
the divine Being manifesting to me through these apertures. He
said to me, “I manifest to you through these openings; they form
seven thousand thresholds (corresponding to the seven principal
stars of the constellation) leading to the threshold of the angelic
pleroma (malakut). And behold I show myself to you through all
of them at once.”

Thus the visions of Ruzbehan illustrate a twofold theme:
that of the pole and that of the walayat, the “initiation” whose
keystone is the pole, grouping and graduating around him the
members of a pure Ecclesia spiritualis, who remain unknown to
ordinary men and invisible to their eyes. The use of the Arabic
term qotb, “axis” (najmat al-Qotb: the pole Star), here evokes the
image of the mill pivot fixed into the lower stationary
millstone, and passing through a central opening in the higher
mobile millstone, whose rotation it governs. The heavenly
dome is the homologue of this mobile element, while the pole
Star represents the aperture through which an ideal axis
passes. The stars closest to the pole Star participate in its pre¬
eminence and are invested with special energy and significance
(the invocations to the constellation of the Bear in certain
Gnostic or magical documents testify to it). These seven stars
have their homologues in the spiritual Heaven. We have just
seen Ruzbehan describe them as the “seven poles,” whereas
these seven mysterious personages are usually designated as
the seven Abdal who, from cycle to cycle, are substituted in suc¬
cession for one another. Just as the constellation of the Bear
dominates and “sees” the totality of the cosmos, they are them¬
selves the eyes through which the Beyond looks at the world. 51

It is at this point that this twofold theme and the spiritual
doctrine of Ruzbehan conjoin. In the latter we find the theme
common to the entire speculative mysticism of Sufism, espe¬
cially stressed in Ibn Arabl, of the Deus absconditus, the “hidden
Treasure,” aspiring to reveal himself, to be known. However,
this very revelation gives rise to a dramatic situation in which

III. Midnight Sun and Celestial Pole

the divine Being and the being in which and through which he
reveals himself are simultaneously implicated, for God cannot
look at an other than himself, nor be seen by an other than him¬
self. The Awliya, the “initiates,” graduated in the different
spiritual degrees, are precisely the eyes at which God looks, be¬
cause they are the eyes through which He looks. Through
them our world remains a world at which God “looks,” and this
is the meaning of the mysterious affirmation that if they were
not, if there ceased to be the pole (the hidden Imam) who is the
keystone of the invisible Heavens which they all combine to
form, our world would collapse in final catastrophe. It is rather
difficult certainly to find in our languages two terms that faith¬
fully render the meanings of the words walayat and Awliya. 52
The idea of “initiation,” that of a sodality of “initiates,” invisible
and permanent from cycle to cycle of prophecy, by substitution
of one for another individuality, seems best fitted to awaken
their resonances. The theme is especially important in Shl’ite
imamology; and it is also Shfite Sufism that offers the best pos¬
sibility of a study in depth. And these terms suggest another
connection. Literally the word Awliya means “Friends”: the
Persian expression Awliya-e Khoda means the “Friends of God.”
The very same term was applied to themselves in the four¬
teenth century by an entire family of Spirituals in the West. All
inhabit the same heights inaccessible to those who are unaware
of their orientation , like the “Friend of God” in Oberland, the
“high country,” where Goethe’s inner vision will nevertheless
know how to find these heights, in a great poem which re¬
mained unfinished: die Geheimnisse (the Secrets).

There are many traditions referring to this people of “in¬
itiates” unknown to the very men whom they exist to protect.
Ruzbehan developed these traditions in the prologue to his
great work on “the Paradoxes of the mystics.” They are gener¬
ally said to be 360 in number, corresponding to the 360 divine
Names, the 360 days and nights of the year, the 360 degrees of
the Sphere measuring the day-night cycle. All the variations of
this number have symbolic meanings. To pick one of the
simplest forms, we will quote the following:

God [writes Ruzbehan], possesses on earth three hundred eyes
or persons whose heart is consonant with the heart of Adam, forty
whose heart is consonant with the heart of Moses-, seven whose

§5. The Pole as the Abode of the Angel Sraosha

heart is consonant with the heart of Abraham-, five whose heart is
consonant with the heart of Gabriel ; three whose heart is consonant
with the heart of Michael', one (the pole) whose heart is consonant
with the heart of Seraphiel . 53

The sum of 356 persons is raised to the total of 360 by four
figures, of prophets who, according to Islamic esotericism
meditating on the Qoranic revelation, have the common charac¬
teristic of having been carried off alive from death: Enoch (that
is to say Idris, identified with Hermes), Khezr, Elijah, and Christ.

3. The Pole as the Abode of the Angel Sraosha

A few years ago, a learned Zoroastrian carefully investigated
this symbolism of the pole and its spiritual constellation. The
extreme interest of his study lies in the fact that it opened a new
path leading from the Zoroastrian religion to the Sufism of the
Islamized Iran. 54 In fact, the work of Sohravard! has already
shown us the path, which he himself and in person opened
intentionally and historically. Here the dominant figure, the
very one which shows the way in question, is that of a Yazata or
“Angel” of the Avesta, 55 who, although not belonging to the
supreme heptad of the Amahraspands (the Immortal Saints,
the “Archangels”), occupies a particularly outstanding rank,
namely the angel Sraosha (Pehlevi Srosh, Persian Sorush), who
has become identified in Islamized Iran with the angel Gabriel.
He is represented as a priest-angel, with the youthful features
common to all Celestials, and our learned Parsee identifies him
as the Angel of initiation ( walayat ), the angel Sraosha’s preroga¬
tives, the«twj of his abode, the specificity of his function, are all
features that would seem to imply the existence in Zoroas¬
trianism itself of an esoteric doctrine professed by the repre¬
sentatives of a cult in which he was the central figure.

The Avesta (Yasht 57) has him dwelling in triumph on the
summit of the highest of mountains ( Haraiti Bareza, th eAlborz).
We have already learned that this very abode is “self-
illuminated within, and adorned on the outside with stars”; and
it is the cosmic mountain described in an Avestan hymn ( Yasht
12:25) as the mountain around which the sun, the moon, and
the stars revolve. Neryoseng, who translated the hymn into
Sanskrit, identifies it with Mount Meru. The Avesta and tra-

III. Midnight Sun and Celestial Pole

ditions here enrich this theme of the cosmic mountain with a
new detail: the fact that there at its summit, at the pole, at the
pole star, is the abode of the Angel Sraosha. From that point
on, the development of our research allows us to understand
the following for ourselves: since hierocosmology places the
dwelling of the angel of Initiation in the cosmic north, and
since hierognosis perceives in his person the pole, it goes with¬
out saying that the arrival at the summit of mystic initiation has
to be experienced, visualized and described as arrival at the
pole, at the cosmic north. And here exactly is where we can
glimpse a link of continuity between Zoroastrian spirituality
centered on the angel Sraosha and the spiritual universe of
Sufism centered around the pole. We in fact quoted above,
while pointing out the existence of variants in regard to the
number and naming of the persons, the traditions which bring
out the esoteric hierarchies, the invisible supports of our world
centered around the pole. On the one hand, the pole is there¬
fore the situs of the angel Sraosha (who thus would correspond
to the angel Seraphiel); on the other hand this is the qualifi¬
cation given in Sufism to the great shaykh of a period (even the
shaykh of a Sufi community, a tariqat, insofar as the latter is
taken as the homologue of a microcosm), and for this reason
the pole is considered in Shi’ite Sufism as representing the
hidden Imam.

Another point of interest in the Zoroastrian scholar’s re¬
search was that he drew attention to a parallelism between Sufi
hierocosmology and certain Taoist concepts; and it is also in
Central Asian Sufism that the idea of the walayat is the most
firmly rooted and amplified (notably after Hakim TermezI, d.
898, in whose writings the number of the forty Abdal is particu¬
larly significant). The Taoist traditions refer to seven spiritual
rulers “localized” in the constellation of the Bear. The “Classic
of the Pivot of Jade” gives a spiritual doctrine told in its very
title, which refers to the North Star, “the pivot of Heaven re¬
volving on itself and carrying all the heavenly bodies along with
it in its round dance.” And it never ceases to suggest remarka¬
ble correspondences with Sufi esoteric concepts. On both sides
we note in fact that the spiritual hierocosmos exemplifies the
same schema as the cosmos of astronomy: the world is ar¬
ranged like a tent resting on a central axis and four lateral pil-

§3. The Pole as the Abode of the Angel Sraosha

lars (awtad). The function of the personages who exemplify the
latter is to revolve around the world every night and to inform
the Qotb what situations require his help. Better still, symbolic
numerology shows a truly striking concordance between the
numerical configuration of the mystical palace of Ming-Tang
(the hall of light which is at once a temple and an astronomical
observatory) and the arrangement of the figures in the mystical
hierarchy already enumerated here. 56

Thus, on the one hand, the angel Sraosha watches over the
sleeping world; he is the guardian angel and the head of a
brotherhood of migrants who “keep watch” on the world and
for the world; they are described by a term referring to their
holy poverty, the Avestan term drigu (Pehlevi drigosh, Pazend
daryosh ), the equivalent of which in modern Persian is darwish,
“dervish,” the name by which all Iranian Sufis are still referred
to today: the “poor in spirit.” On the other hand, this brother¬
hood represents a group which is invisible to ordinary men and
which exemplifies the very image of the cosmos unfolded, rest¬
ing like a tent on its axis and at its peak Sraosha’s own abode,
the cosmic north “secreting its own light.” The symbols of
Taoism, Zoroastrianism, and Sufism are all in accord with this
same representation.

And so the “heavenly Earths” from which we have already
{supra II) seen Forms of light appear and descend toward their
earthly Doubles are all, like Hurqalya, the “eighth” climate, re¬
gions of the cosmic north, which means thresholds of the be¬
yond. In Manicheism there is the Earth of Light, Terra lucida,
situated in the kingdom of light. It is governed by a divinity of
eternal light, surrounded by twelve Splendors. Like Hurqalya,
like the Paradise of Yima, all the beauties of our terrestrial
Earth are included in it, but in the subtle state, as pure light
without an Ahrimanian shadow. And just as, when the Mani-
cheans take as their Qibla the sun and the moon, it does not
mean that they are worshipping the sun and the moon but that
they look upon them as the pre-eminent visible representatives
of the world of light, so when they take the north as Qibla it
means that they are turning toward the Terra lucida, the dwel¬
ling of the king of Light. We have already mentioned the ideal
world of the Mandeans, Mshunia Kushta, a world intermediate
between our world and the universe of light; this is a world

III. Midnight Sun and Celestial Pole

peopled by a divine race of superhumans, beings with a subtle
body invisible to us, descendants of the hidden Adam (Adam
kasia), and we learned that among them each earthly being has
his Twin of light. This mundus imaginalis also has its guardian
spirit (its dmutha), its king of light, Shishlam Rba, just as Hibil
Ziwa is the guardian spirit of the Earth (and there are striking
analogies between the actions of Hibil Ziwa and those of the
young prince in the Song of the Pearl). Now, the Mandeans also
believe that this Earth of light is in the north, separated from
our world by a high mountain of ice; while they make it clear
that it is “between Heaven and Earth,” this belief points out
precisely that what is in question is not the earthly north, but
the cosmic north. 57 The theme of the Green Island (al-Jazirat
al-khodra) should also be recalled here, the Green Island being
the dwelling of the “hidden Imam.”

No doubt it would take a whole book to bring together all
the evidence showing the significance of the Orient as supra-
sensory Orient, Orient-origin, Orient that consequently has to
be looked for in the heights, on the vertical axis because it is
identified with the pole, the cosmic north, as being a threshold
of the worlds beyond. This orientation was already given to the
Orphic mystes. We find it in the poem of Parmenides where the
poet undertakes a journey toward the Orient. The sense of two
directions, right and left, the Orient and Occident of the Cos¬
mos, is fundamental in Valentinian Gnosis. But to make one’s way
to the right, toward the Orient, still means to go upward, that is to say
in the direction of the pole, because in fact the Occident
typifies the world below, the world of sensory matter, whereas
the Orient typifies the spiritual world. Ibn ’Arab! (1240) sym¬
bolically glorifies his own departure for the East; the journey
which took him from Andalusia toward Mecca and Jerusalem,
he saw as his Isra, comparing it to an ekstasis which repeats the
Prophet’s ascent from Heaven to Heaven, up to the “Lotus of
the boundary.” 58 Here the geographic, “literal” East becomes
the symbol of the “real” Orient which is the heavenly pole de¬
scribed in Sohravardl’s recital of the Exile as the ascent of the
mountain of Qaf to the Emerald Rock.

Another very great Iranian Sufi master, ’All-e Hamadan!
(d. 786/1385), in a treatise on dreams, speaks of the Orient
which is the very ipseity ( bowiyat ) of the world of Mystery, that is

§3. The Pole as the Abode of the Angel Sraosha

to say of the supra-sensory world, of that Orient where the Per¬
fect Ones rise. Elsewhere he speaks of this same Orient as the
ipseity of the invisible world which is the source of the emana¬
tion of being, descending to the Occident of the world of bodies,
by the eight degrees or Abodes of the worlds of the Jabarut and
of the Malakut , 59 In the same way, when Avicenna asks Hayy
ibn Yaqzan (who plays in respect to him the part played by Per¬
fect Nature in respect to Hermes) what his country is, the an¬
swer refers to the Heavenly Jerusalem, Hayy ibn Yaqzan, the
personification of the Active Intelligence, is an “Oriental”; he
belongs to that “Orient” the steps to which he shows to the
philosopher, his disciple, mounting one above the other from
the world of earthly matter. 60 This idea of the Orient in the
Avicennan Recitals is thus perfectly in accord with Sohravardf s
idea expressed in his own “oriental theosophy”; the “Orientals”
are those who, coming from above, return there after passing
through the inner initiation described in the Recital of the “oc¬
cidental” exile.

They arrive at this “oriental knowledge” (’ ilm ishraqi) which
is not a re-presentative knowledge, but an immediate Presence
of the known, in the way that he who knows himself is present
to himself. The Latin equivalent would be the expression cog-
nitio matutina, used in Renaissance Hermetism and which al¬
ready figures in St. Augustine’s terminology. Whereas the eve¬
ning knowledge, “occidental,” cognitio vespertina, is the outer
man’s knowledge—knowledge of the outside of things—the
morning knowledge, “oriental,” cognitio matutina, is the knowl¬
edge of the man of light, having attained the “abode which
secretes its own light,” that is to say the Emerald Rock, this
being the knowledge which is self-consciousness. This cognitio
matutina is in a sense cognitio polaris, the aurora borealis in the
Heaven of the soul. There exactly is discovered the way of ac¬
cess to the deepest sense of the Sufi saying recalled here from
the beginning: “he who knows himself knows his Lord,” that is:
knows his heavenly pole.

There is indeed a correlation between the discovery of the
ego, the ego in the second person, the Alter Ego, thou, and the
upward vertical direction—between internalization (the dis¬
covery of the Heavens of the soul) and orientation toward the
heavenly pole. If Sohravardl’s “oriental theosophy” explodes

III. Midnight Sun and Celestial Pole

the schema of Ptolemaic astronomy and the Peripatetic theory
of the Intelligences, it is because the universe of spiritual beings
postulated by both of them is not on the scale of the multitudes
of the Heaven of the Fixed Stars, the “infinite Lights” on which
Sohravardi’s meditation was fixed. But by visionary appercep¬
tion he assimilates the visions of Zarathustra and of the blessed
king Kay Khosraw (one of the legendary kings of ancient Iran,
born in Eran-Vej), and goes beyond the schema of the as¬
tronomy of his own time through the vision of the suprasen-
sory Heavens, or what in Sufism is called the “esoteric of each
Heaven” (batin al-falak), the very Heavens which mark the
stages of the Prophet’s heavenly ascent or the ascent of the
mountain of Qaf. The identification of the “esoteric” Orient,
that is to say of the suprasensory Orient, cosmic north,
heavenly pole, is conditioned by the effective passing to the
inner world, that is to say to the eighth climate, the Climate of
the Soul, the Earth of Light, Hurqalya.

In the same way, Najmoddln Kobra emphasizes this by de¬
veloping the theme that like can only be known by like.

Do not believe that the Heaven you contemplate in the su¬
prasensory is the visible outer Sky. No, in the suprasensory (i.e., in
the spiritual world) there are other Skies, more subtle, bluer,
purer, brighter, innumerable and limitless. The purer you be¬
come within, the purer and more beautiful is the Sky that appears
to you, until finally you are walking in divine purity. But divine
purity is also limitless. So never believe that beyond what you have
reached there is nothing more, nothing higher still.” (§ 60)

And here is a still more radical statement of the principle of
innerness, making every spiritual reality something as inherent
in the mystic as his own life and his own death:

Know that the soul, the devil, the angel are not realities out¬
side of you; you are they. Likewise, Heaven, Earth, and the
Throne are not outside of you, nor paradise nor hell, nor death
nor life. They exist in you; when you have accomplished the mys¬
tical journey and have become pure you will become conscious of
that. (§ 67)

Now, to accomplish this mystical journey, is exactly what inter¬
nalize is, that is, to “come out toward oneself’; that is what the
exodus is, the journey toward the Orient-origin which is the
heavenly pole, ascent of the soul out of the “well,” when at the
mouth of the well arises the visio smaragdina.

“And there was a rainbow round about the
throne, in sight like unto an emerald”

Book of Revelation: 4:3

IV. VISIO SMARAGDINA

1. Najmoddin Kobra (1220)

It seems that Najmoddin Kobra was the first of the Sufi mas¬
ters to focus his attention on the phenomena of colors, the col¬
ored photisms that the mystic can perceive in the course of his
spiritual states. He took great pains to describe these colored
lights and to interpret them as signs revealing the mystic’s state
and degree of spiritual progress. Some of the greatest masters
of the Iranian Sufism issuing from this Central Asian school,
notably Najm Dayeh RazI, Najm Kobra’s direct disciple, and
Alaoddawleh SemnanI who followed his tariqat, have in their
turn illustrated this experimental method of spiritual control
which implies at the same time an appreciation of the sym¬
bolism of colors and their mutations.

This is certainly not to say that their predecessors were un¬
familiar with visionary experiences. Far from it. But the
anonymous short work of a shaykh (which must have been
written later than SemnanI, since it refers to him by name)
bears witness to an “orthodox” teacher’s alarm at what seemed
to him an innovation. 61 Sohravardi himself, at the end of his
most important work, wherein his aim is to restore the “oriental
theosophy,” gives a detailed description of the experiences of
light, of photisms, that a mystic can have; however, colors and
their symbolism are not yet referred to. 62

IV. Visio Smaragdina

The descriptions do not refer to physical perceptions; Najm
Kobra alludes several times to these colored lights as something
seen “with the eyes closed.” They have to do with something
related to the perception of an aura. There is indeed affinity
and correspondence between physical colors and auric (or au¬
ral, “auroral”) colors, in the sense that physical colors them¬
selves have a moral and spiritual quality and that what the
aura 63 expresses corresponds to it, “symbolizes with it.” This
correspondence, this symbolism, is precisely what makes it pos¬
sible for a spiritual master to establish a method of control by
which to discriminate between suprasensory perceptions and
what we would call today “hallucinations.” Technically, one
should speak of it as visionary apperception. The phenomenon
corresponding to it is primary and primordial, irreducible, just
as the perception of a physical sound or color is irreducible to
anything else. As for the organ of this visionary apperception
and the mode of being in which it can function, these questions
relate precisely to the “physiology of the man of light,” whose
growth is marked by the opening of what Najm Kobra calls the
“senses suprasensory.” To the extent that the latter are the ac¬
tivity of the subject himself, of the soul, we shall conclude this
study by briefly outlining an interconnection with Goethe’s
theory of “physiological colors.”

It has to be understood, of course, that in the schema of the
world presupposed and verified here by mystical experience,
the terms light and darkness, clarity and obscurity, are neither
metaphors nor comparisons. The mystic really and actually sees
light and darkness, by a kind of vision that depends on an
organ other than the physical organ of sight. He experiences
and perceives the state from which he aspires to free himself as
shadow and darkness, as powers which attract him downward;
he perceives as light all the signs and premonitions heralding
his liberation, the direction from which it comes, all the appari¬
tions that attract him upward. There is nothing questionable
about the orientation of the world experienced in the vertical
dimension: at the summit the heavenly pole, at the nadir the
well of darkness where the element of light is held captive (just
as, in the Mazdean schema, the light is in the north, the shadow
and darkness are in the south). That the entire schematization
is in perfect consonance with the Manichean cosmogony and at

§2. Najmoddin Kobra (1220)

the same time with the Sohravardian recital of the Exile, and
with the Song of the Pearl in the Acts of Thomas, is what the first
paragraph of Najm Kobra’s great book tells us: “Learn, O my
friend, that the object of the search ( morad ) is God, and that the
subject who seeks (the subject who makes effort, morid) is a light
that comes from him (or a particle of his light).” (§1) 64 In other
words the “seeker,” the hero of the Quest, is none other than
the captive light itself, the man of light, jxDTeLVOs 'avdpaynos.

This is the first leitmotiv of Najm Kobra’s great work. This
particle of light aspires to free itself, to rise again to its origin.
What is depicted in those of the Persian miniatures where the
Manichean influence can be detected ( infra VI, 1) is thus
exactly the same as what Najm Kobra perceives through
visionary apperception. A flame comes down from the
Heavens to meet the flame leaping up from the Earth, and at
their fiery meeting-point Najm discerns or foresees the pres¬
ence of the “heavenly Witness,” the “suprasensory Guide,” who
is revealed in this climax as the homologue of Perfect Nature,
the Nous, the iroipr)v, the guide of light of Prometheus-Phos.
There is a correlation between the escape of the man of light,
the colored photisms, and the manifestation of the heavenly
guide. This correlation itself intimates the condition which
must precede all such experience: men must separate them¬
selves from the veil that blinds them.

Now, this veil is not outside themselves; it is a part of them,
and is the darkness of their creatural nature. (§1)

My friend, shut your eyelids and look at what you see. If you
tell me: I see nothing—you are mistaken. You can see very well,
but unfortunately the darkness of your nature is so close to you
that it obstructs your inner sight, to the point that you do not
discern what is to be seen. If you want to discern it and to see it in
front of you even with your eyes closed, begin by diminishing or
by putting away from you something of your nature. But the path
leading to that end is spiritual warfare. And the meaning of
spiritual warfare is putting everything to work so as to repel the
enemies or to kill them. The enemies in this case are nature, the
lower soul, and the devil. (§2)

To reach the goal, one must first orient oneself-, discern the
shadow and where the shadow is. This shadow is composed of
the three antagonists that have just been named. Spiritual war¬
fare trains one to recognize the enemies, to know them by

IV. Visio Smaragdina

name, to distinguish the forms in which they appear, and to
effect their transmutation. Actually these various works are
carried out synchronically rather than successively; progress
and results are correlative: separation from the shadow and the
fall of the shadow, manifestation of the lights and of the Guide
of light. This exactly will serve as a final warning not to abuse
the idea and the word shadow, the guide of light is no more the
shadow than he is a “positive” aspect of the shadow. This figure
requires us henceforth to recognize another dimension of the
person, not a negativity but a transcendence. Since Najm Kob-
ra’s book is a spiritual journal rather than a didactic treatise, a
diarium spiritual'e not unlike that of Ruzbehan, the best we can
do is to single out certain of its leading themes; their lines con¬
verge. The three adversaries can only be destroyed at the price
of an effort that attacks the discordant trilogy of the soul. The
motive power to fuel this effort is the light itself, that is, the
particle of light, the “man of light,” effecting the conversion of
like to like. Th edhikr, as a spiritual technique, plays an essential
role. The spiritual energy given off by the dhikr makes possible
the emergence and ascent from the well; this theme recurs with
an emphasis we have already pointed out. The stages of ascent
are accompanied by the colored photisms that herald the
growth of the subtle organs or centers of the man of light, at¬
tracted to and by the supernatural green light that shines at the
mouth of the well. At the end of this ascent, the phenomena of
light multiply, heralding the rejoining with the heavenly Wit¬
ness, at the pole. Najm Kobra’s entire doctrine perfectly
exemplifies the archetype of individual initiation peculiar to
Sufism.

2. Light and Spiritual Warfare

To recognize the three adversaries means actually to catch sight
of them, to experience the forms in which they appear. Far from
merely constructing a theory, Najm Kobra describes real events
which take place in the inner world, on the “plane of visionary
apperception” ( maqam al-moshahada) , in an order of reality cor¬
responding specifically to the organ of perception which is the
imaginative faculty ( Imaginatrix ). 65 This exactly is where
creatural nature, natural existence ( wojud ), “is at first sight
complete darkness; when it begins to be purified, you will see it

§2. Light and Spiritual Warfare

take on before your eyes the appearance of a black cloud. So
long as it is the seat of the Devil ( shaytan ) it has a reddish appear¬
ance. When its excrescences are corrected and annihilated and
legitimate aspirations are implanted in their stead, you will see
that its appearance gradually whitens and it becomes a white
cloud {a. cumulus). As for the lower soul B6 , at its first appearance,
its color is deep blue ; it seems to be an upsurge, like that of
water from a spring. If the soul is the seat of the Devil, it looks
like a twofold upsurge of darkness and of fire, without the power
to show anything else, for there is no good in devilry. Now,
what pours forth from the soul overflows and spreads over the
whole of a man’s nature; this is why all spiritual teaching de¬
pends on the soul. When the soul is healthy and pure, what
flows from it is Good, and Goodness germinates from natural
existence; if what flows from it is Evil, Evil will germinate. The
Devil is an impure fire mixed with the darkness of impiety in
monstrous form. Sometimes he takes the shape before your
eyes of a gigantic Negro, terrible to look upon. He makes every
effort to enter into you. If you want to make him give up, recite
in your heart: ‘O Thou, the help of those who ask, help me
(§7).’ ” For, as another great Sufi says: “Satan laughs at all your
threats. What frightens him is to see a light in your heart ,” 67 that
is to say, when you become aware of what he is. Now as we have
read (supra §67 quoted in fine III, p. 100-101), he, like any
other spiritual reality, is not outside of you; his attempts to “en¬
ter into you” are but one phase of the fight which is being
waged within you.

What this means precisely is that the shadow is in you: to
separate yourself from the shadow is to bring about your own
metamorphosis, and by this metamorphosis to make possible
the conjunction of the two currents of fire rising and falling to
meet one another.

Natural existence is made up of four elements superimposed
on one another, all of which are darkness'. Earth, Water, Fire, Air;
and you yourself are buried beneath them all. The only way to
separate yourself from them is to act in such a way that every
rightful part in you comes together with that to which it rightfully
belongs, that is, by acting in such a way that each part comes to¬
gether with its counter-part: Earth receives the earthy part, Water
the watery part, Air the etheric part, Fire the fiery part. When
each has received its share, you will finally be delivered of these

IV. Visio Smaragdina

burdens. The three adversaries disturb the innate knowledge of
the divine; they form an obstacle between th e heart and the divine
Throne', they prevent the conjunction of the two rays of light. Be¬
cause of them, a man finds himself at first in a state of total
spiritual blindness (§11).

What is at stake in metamorphosis is therefore wholly this:
either, the soul having succeeded in separating itself, the man
of light effects conjunction with his guide of light, his “witness
in Heaven” {shahid fi’l-sama ); or else the soul succumbs to its
darkness, remains in the embrace of its Ibhs, its demonic
shadow. “To convert one’s own Iblis to Islam,” as Abu’l-Ma’arl
and ’Attar expresses it, means to effect the destruction of the
lower soul. The individual has no power to destroy Iblis in the
world, but he can separate his soul from Iblis by destroying the
shadow in his soul, for Iblis can weld himself to the soul only in
shadow. Everything depends therefore on the effort directed
to the central adversary: the soul, with its Iblis on one side, and
natural existence on the other. The stages of metamorphosis
are detected by means of the three different words used in the
Qoran to qualify the soul; when the third of these qualities
flowers, it can be taken that the heart (qalb) exists in actuality;
the heart is the subtle center of light, the Throne in the micro¬
cosm, and by that very fact the organ and place of conjunction
with the light of the Throne.

3. The Trilogy of the Soul

Three characteristics situate and constitute the trilogy of the
drama of the soul. There is the extravagant lower soul: nafs
ammara (12:53), literally, the imperative soul, “the one which
commands” evil, the passionate, sensual lower ego. There is the
“blaming” soul: nafs lawwama (75:2), “the one which censures,”
criticizes; this is self-consciousness, and is likened to the intel¬
lect (’ aql) of the philosophers. Finally there is the “pacified
soul”: nafs motma’yanna (89:87); the soul which in the true sense
is the heart {qalb), to which the Qoran addresses the words: “O
pacified soul, return to your Lord, accepting and accepted.” 68
This return, which is the reunion of the two fiery currents, is
exactly what is described in one of Najm Kobra’s most signif¬
icant visions.

The extravagant lower soul, the ego of the common run of

§ 5 . TheTriology of the Soul

men, remains such as it is so long as the effects of spiritual
warfare have not made themselves felt. When the effect of con¬
tinuous prayer, the dhikr, penetrates it, it is as though a lamp
were lighted in a darkened dwelling. Then the soul attains the
degree of “blaming soul”; it perceives that the dwelling is clut¬
tered with filth and wild beasts; it exerts itself to drive them out
so that the dwelling may be ready to welcome the light of the
dhikr as its sovereign; this welcome will be the prelude to the
opening of the pacified soul (§54).

And there are signs which make it possible to recognize re¬
spectively by visionary apperception each moment in this tril¬
ogy, each phase of metamorphosis. Thanks to these signs the
Spiritual retains perfect awareness of himself.

Know that the lower soul presents a sign that makes it recog¬
nizable by visionary apperception: it is a great circle that rises in
front of you, entirely black, as it were of tar. Then it disappears,
only to arise before you again later in the aspect of a black cloud.
But lo and behold! gradually, at its arising, something is revealed
at its edges resembling the crescent of the new moon when one of
its horns appears in the sky through the clouds. Little by little, it
becomes a complete crescent. When the soul has become con¬
scious of itself to the point of self-judgment, behold it rises to the
side of the right cheek in the aspect of a glowing sun whose heat
may even be felt on one’s cheek. Sometimes it is visualized by the
ear, sometimes before the forehead, sometimes above the head.
And this blaming soul is the intelligence (’aql referred to by the
philosophers) (§55).

As for the pacified soul, it also presents a sign which makes it
identifiable by visionary apperception: sometimes it rises in front
of you forming as it were the orb of a great fountain giving forth
lights; sometimes you visualize it in the suprasensory realm as
corresponding to the circle of your countenance, an orb of light, a
limpid disk, similar to a perfectly polished mirror. At times this
circle may seem to rise toward your face and the latter to vanish
into it. Your face is then itself the pacified soul. 69 Sometimes, on
the contrary, you visualize the circle at a distance, as though far
removed from you in the suprasensory realm. There are then
between you and the circle of the pacified soul a thousand stages;
if you were to draw near to one of them, you would be set oil fire
(§56).

From here on the end is in sight. The path will be long and
perilous; it is difficult to describe, that is, it is not easy to con¬
nect, descriptions of the path in a logical and rational order in

IV. Visio Smaragdina

which no moment would overlap another. Najm Kobra’s
Diarium offers us rather the possibility of developing the theme
of each phase alternately, considering them successively from
several points of view, amongst which priority is given to that
which applies to the force that moves the mystical pilgrim along
the Way. From another point of view, to perceive the effects of
this spiritual energy in him will be a way of following the stages
of the ascent and the concomitant growth of the “organs of
light,” which multiplies eo ipso the possibilities of visionary ap¬
perception, leading to the vision that proclaims the integration
of bi-unity.

4. Like with Like

So far we have been given the names of three organs or cen¬
ters: the soul ( nafs ), the intellect (’ aql ), the heart ( qalb ). Two
other centers, the spirit ( ruh ) and the transconsciousness (sirr,
the “secret”) take their place in a whole where their meaning
and function will be made clear to us later in the writings of
Najm Kobra’s disciples (infra V, 2 and VI, 1). These are the
centers of a subtle physiology, recognizable by the colored
lights which symbolize them. These are the organs which allow
the supreme principle to operate, in hierocosmology as in
hierognosis: like seeks to unite with like. A substance sees and
knows only its like; it can itself be seen and known only by its
like (§70). This is the principle which, according to Najm
Kobra, governs the fundamental intuition and sets it in opera¬
tion: what is sought is the divine Being; the seeker is himself a
light coming from the divine Being, a particle of its light. The
statement and application of the principle certainly awaken
many consonances. We already hear it in Empedocles: “Fire
can be seen only by fire.” In the Corpus Hermeticum (11/20)
where the Nous declares to Hermes: “If you do not make your¬
self like God, you cannot understand God.” In Plotinus ( En-
neads VI, 9, 11): “The Principle can be seen only by the Princi¬
ple.” In the West it leads us from Meister Eckhart to Goethe
(infra VI, 2).

’All-e Hamadani, the great shaykh responsible for the
spread of Sufism in India, formulates it briefly in a way that is
particularly striking: 70 The human being, he says, is a copy

§4. Like with Like

transcribed from the great Qoran which is the cosmos. Every¬
thing that constitutes this cosmic Qoran—suras, verses, words,
letters, vowel signs—has an esoteric and an exoteric aspect.

In each part of a man which has been purified, its counter¬
part of the same nature is reflected, for nothing can be seen ex¬
cept by its like. Therefore, when the esoteric nature indicated by a
man’s inclinations and faculties has become pure, he con¬
templates therein whatever is of the same nature in the macro¬
cosm. The same applies to the soul, the heart, the spirit, the trans¬
consciousness, up to the arcanum (khafi), the innermost place
where the divine Attributes which intoxicate are unveiled, and
where it can be said / am His hearing, I am His sight. . .

The parts constituting the human being can even be re¬
garded as fragments of their cosmic counterparts; each belongs
to a whole from which it derives. Najm Kobra thus establishes a
real connection between the fire of passion and the infernal
fire: the fire of voluptuousness, of hunger and thirst, of wic¬
kedness and sensuality are parts of the infernal fire. By feeding
these fires a man increases his hell, for hell is not outside of
him; man is his own hell (§130). Particles of different natures
are mutually repellent; the particles imprisoned in man are at¬
tracted to their like. The attraction, in its physical aspect, is
magnetism, in its psychic aspect, the yearning of like for like.
Actually the first aspect is only the exoteric aspect of the sec¬
ond; Najm Kobra is thinking of the second aspect when he has
recourse to his favorite image of the precious stone longing for
the world from which it was originally extracted.

For this attraction is oriented', toward the Heaven of the soul,
the suprasensory Heaven, the inner Heaven, or perhaps it is
better to say the “esoteric” Heaven, in case the word “inner”
should give rise to the idea of a subjective “heaven” lacking
any substantial reality. Orientation toward the Heaven of the
soul, toward th epole, presupposes and brings about this inward
movement which is the return to the vast world of the soul, the
passage to the “esoteric.” The subtle organ which envelops the
heart and which Najm Kobra calls the Holy Ghost in man is
identified with this Heaven. The subtle organ designated as
Spirit is the Heaven of the heart. The movement inward brings
about the passage from this world to the world beyond, from
the outer man to the man of light. As we have noted, the idea

IV. Visio Smaragdina

of the spiritual Heavens had already led SohravardI to explode
the schema of Ptolemaic astronomy, and the same idea opened
the way to the Emerald Rock for Hermes and the expatriate in
the Recital of the Exile. This passage, this exodus, is what au¬
thenticates and what is foreseen in the visions received by
visionary apperception, in which there are an above and a be¬
low, Heavens and Earths: because oriented toward the pole, all
this no longer has to do with the world of objects of sensory
experience. The reascent of like towards its like (the ascent of
the “column of Light”) traversing the entire cosmos, the return
of light to light, of precious stones to their origin: the an¬
thropology which is its organ is the science that concerns the
man of light and is oriented toward the pole. If this were not so,
the mi’raj of the prophet and the ascent out of the well are
unintelligible and devoid of reality. If this is so, then mystical
experience fills a function of cosmic salvation. Several essential
passages in Najm Kobra’s treatises make this abundantly clear.

The Holy Ghost in man is a heavenly subtle organ. When the
concentrated power of spiritual energy 71 is lavished on him, he is
reunited with the Heavens and the Heavens are merged with him.
Or rather, Heavens and Spirit are one and the same thing. And
this Spirit does not cease to soar, to increase, and to grow until it
has acquired a nobility higher than the nobility of Heaven. Or
again we could say: in the human being there are precious stones
from every kind of mine, and everything that aspires to redis¬
cover its own original mine is of the same nature as the latter
(§59).

But Najm makes it clear that will and effort are necessary to set
free this attractive energy.

I have never contemplated Heaven below me nor within me,
unless beforehand there had arisen in me an effort and this com¬
plaint: why am I not now in Heaven or greater than Heaven? For
then the noble precious stones in exile were experiencing a con¬
suming nostalgia for their original home and found it again at last
(§59). 72

It is therefore the terminal point of this reunion that
guarantees the orientation: Earths and Heavens of the sup-
rasensory realm, of the beyond whose threshold is the pole.

Know that visionary apperception is twofold: there is percep¬
tion of what is below and perception of what is above. Below is the
vision of all that the Earth (and by Earth I mean here the su-

§ 4 . Like with Like

prasensory Earth Terra lucida, not the Earth which is in the pliysi
cally visible world)—of all, I repeat, that the Earth contains by way
of colors, oceans, luminaries, deserts, landscapes, cities, wells, for¬
tresses, etc. Above, there is the vision of all that the Heavens con¬
tain: sun, moon, stars, constellations of the Zodiac, houses of the
moon. Now, you see and discern nothing whatsoever except by
means of something that is its like (or which is a part of it): the
precious stone sees only the mine from which it originated, it
yearns and is homesick for that alone. Therefore when you envi¬
sion a heaven, an earth, a sun, or stars, or a moon, know that this
is because the particle in you which comes from that mine has
become pure (§60).

There follows the warning we have already read (supra III, 3 in
fine) and which conditions all suprasensory experience: what¬
ever the heavens you are contemplating, there are always other
heavens beyond; there is no limit.

Mutual attraction and recognition of like by like: this law is
exemplified in multiple variations throughout Najm Kobra’s
doctrine and mystical experience. It is the basis of a com-
municatio idiomatum between the divine and the human, a reci¬
procity of states which is very characteristically projected and
expressed in terms of spatialization and localization. Pure
spiritual space arises from the state experienced, and the state
experienced is a visitation of the divine Attributes. Here we
may recall the Coptic Gnostic books of leu (third century), 73 in
which the Emanations of the true God leu surrounding a
Treasury, the place of the true God, are themselves the places or
abodes of the tottol\ the soul of the mystic is welcomed there by
the collectors of the Treasury of Light; under their guidance it
leaps from one place to another, until it reaches the Treasury of
Light. The mahadir, in Najm Kobra’s terminology, correspond
exactly to those places or abodes known to the gnostics. “The
divine Being has different places or abodes and they are the
places of the Attributes. You distinguish them from one another
by your own mystical experience, for when you rise to this or
that place, your tongue involuntarily utters the name of that
place and of its attribute.”

Here again, therefore, there are signs and indications
which make verification possible, as previously in the case of
each of the places of the soul, and as there will be also for each
of the colored photisms.

IV. Visio Smaragdina

The heart participates in every divine Attribute, and there¬
fore in the divine Essence. This participation does not cease to
grow, and the mystics differ from each other according to the
extent of their participation. Since each Attribute has its seat in
one of the places or abodes in question, and since the heart par¬
ticipates in each of the divine Attributes, they are epiphanized in
the heart to the extent that the heart participates in these Attrib¬
utes. Thus Attributes are revealed to Attributes, Essence to Es¬
sence (or the Self to the Self). On the one hand, the Attributes (or
places) contemplate the heart (cause it to be present to them). On
the other hand, the heart contemplates the places of the Attrib¬
utes (makes itself present to them). Theophany is brought about
first by theoretical knowledge, later by visionary apperception,
whether the Attributes make themselves witnesses present to the
heart, or whether the heart makes itself a witness and present to
th e places of the Attributes (§61).

This is a subtle passage and hard to follow at first, but ex¬
tremely important, because it is the preliminary outline of and
introduction to the subsequent account of the relationship of
the mystic with his “heavenly Witness” which will develop at the
summit of his inner ascent. In this relationship the Con-
templator ( shahid ) is simultaneously the one who is Con¬
templated ( mashhiid ), the one who witnesses is simultaneously
the one who is witnessed, and this already indicates that the
idea of the “heavenly Witness” in Najm Kobra is no different,
in essence, from the idea of the Witness of contemplation
which orients the spiritual view of other contemporary Sufi
masters.

Furthermore, this relationship results from the idea that
the seeker is himself a particle of the divine light that is being
sought; it illustrates the principle of the Quest and of the rec¬
ognition of “like by like,” which is amplified with extraordinary
power in other passages, calling us to witness this reunion which
is the culminating moment of personal initiation.

There are lights which ascend and lights which descend.
The ascending lights are the lights of the heart; the descending
lights are those of the Throne. Creatural being is the veil between
the Throne and the heart. When this veil is rent and a door to the
Throne opens in the heart, like springs toward like. Light rises
toward light and light comes down upon light, “and it is light upon
light” (Qoran 24:35) (§62).

Everything that we are analyzing may well be condensed in

§5. The Function of the Dhikr

those few lines: a totality which is “light upon light,” not light
and shadow, in the perspective of the threefold psychic dimen¬
sion, as we have again to emphasize in conclusion (infra IV, 10).
Here are further invaluable quotations:

Each time the heart sighs for the Throne, the Throne sighs
for the heart, so that they come to meet . . . Each precious stone
(that is, each of the elements of the man of light) which is in you
brings you a mystical state or vision in the Heaven corresponding
to it, whether it be the fire of ardent desire, of delight or of love
(see §83 quoted infra IV, 9). Each time a light rises up from you, a
light comes down toward you, and each time a flame rises from you, a
corresponding flame comes down toward you (see further §83)
... If their energies are equal, they meet half-way (between
Heaven and Earth) . . . But when the substance of light has grown
in you, then this becomes a Whole in relation to what is of the
same nature in Heaven: then it is the substance of light in Heaven
which yearns for you and is attracted by your light, and it de¬
scends toward you. This is the secret of the mystical approach (sirr
al-sayr, §63-64).

A truly fascinating description; but how does the Sufi reach
this aim? The most effective means of realization offered to
him is the dhikr (= zekr), continuous prayer. This is what can
bring about the opening and then the growth of this substance
of light which is in you, to such a degree that by attracting the
heavenly Witness, its suprasensory Guide, the reunion will take
place. The stages of growth of this organism of light will then
be marked by the colored photisms, until the particle of divine
light, the man of light within you, your (/xareifos avdp(niro<;,
suddenly bursts forth.

5. The Function of the Dhikr

Of all spiritual practices: meditation on the sayings of the Pro¬
phet and on the traditions of Sufism, meditated recitation of
the Qoran, ritual Prayer, and so forth, the dhikr (zekr) is the
practice most apt to free spiritual energy, that is, to allow the
particle of divine light which is in the mystic to rejoin its like.
The advantage of the dhikr is that it is not restricted to any
ritual hour; its only limitation is the personal capacity of the
mystic. It is impossible to study the question of colored
photisms without knowing the spiritual exercise which is their
source. Everything takes place, needless to say, in the ghayba,

IV. Visio Smaragdina

the suprasensory world; what is in question here is solely the
physiology of the man of light. Najm Kobra set himself the task
of describing the cases and circumstances in which the fire of
the dhikr itself becomes the object of mystical apperception. As
opposed to the fire of the Devil, which is a dark fire, the vision
of which is accompanied by distress and a feeling of over¬
whelming oppression, the fire of the dhikr is visualized as a
pure and ardent blaze, animated by a rapid upward movement
(§8). On seeing it, the mystic experiences a feeling of inner
lightness, expansion, and intimate relief. This fire enters into
the dwelling place like a sovereign prince, announcing: “I
alone, and none other than I.” It sets fire to all that is there to
be consumed, and sheds light on any darkness it may en¬
counter. If light is there already, the two lights associate with
each other and there is light upon light (§§9-10).

That is why one form of the dhikr above all other, leading in
actuality to the acquisition of this pure and ardent flame, con¬
sists in repeating the first part of th e shahada, the profession of
faith: la ilaha illa’llah (Nullus deus nisi Deus ), and meditating
upon it according the the rules of Sufism. 74 In Ismaelian Shfite
gnosis, theosophical dialectic was already practiced with ex¬
treme subtlety by alternating the negative and affirmative
phases composing the first part of the shahada, in order to open
up a path between the two abysses, th eta’til and th etashbih, that
is to say, between rationalist agnosticism and the literal
realism of naive faith. By following this way, the idea of mediat¬
ing theophanies is established, the hierarchy of the pleroma of
light. While the transcendence of the Principle beyond being
and non-being is preserved in Ismaelian gnosis, orthodoxy is
blamed inasmuch as it falls into the most pernicious kind of
metaphysical idolatry, the very one it was so anxious to avoid.
In the Sufism of Najm Kobra, the reiteration of the negative
part of the shahada (nullus Deus) is designed to be a weapon
against all the powers of the nafs ammara (the lower ego); it
consists in denying and rejecting all pretensions to divine pre¬
rogatives, all claims inspired in the soul by the instincts of pos¬
sessiveness and domination. In the positive part of the shahada
( 1 nisi Deus ) on the other hand the exclusive nature and powers
of the One and Only One are affirmed.

Then there comes about the state alluded to in a saying

§5. The Function of the Dhikr

tirelessly repeated by the Sufis, and familiar to us because we
have read it in St. Paul (7 Cor. 2:9), where in fact it harks hack (o
the Revelation of Elijah. 75 The mystic “sees what the eye has not
seen, hears what no ear has heard, while thoughts arise in his
mind which had never arisen in the heart of man,” that is to
say, of man who remains buried in the depths of natural exis¬
tence. For the effect of the fire-light of the dhikr is to make a
man clairvoyant in Darkness; and this clairvoyance foretells
that the heart is being freed, is emerging from the well of na¬
ture; but (let us remember the Sohravardian Recital of the Exile)
“only a heart that holds fast to the cable of the Qoran and to the
train of the robe of the dhikr 76 escapes from the well of nature.”

No doubt the practice of the dhikr in Najm Kobra’s school
includes also a whole system of techniques: movements of the
head, control of breathing, certain postures (in Semnani for
example, the seated position with crossed legs, right hand
placed on left hand, the latter holding the right leg which is
placed on the left thigh) possibly revealing Taoist influence. 77
By uninterrupted polarization of the attention on an object, the
object finally imposes itself with such force, is imbued with
such life, that the mystic is attracted and is, as it were, absorbed
into it. This is the phenomenon Rudolf Otto found so striking
when he had already discerned a clear parallel between the
Sufi dhikr and the u v Vt L V tov Qeoii or ’Itjctou practiced by the
monks of Athos and in early Christian monasticism. 78

The preponderant role of the Sufi dhikr is justified in that it
establishes experientially the connection between the theme of
the ascent from the well, the polar orientation of the spiritual
seeker and the growth of his body of light. The polar orienta¬
tion in this case signifies also and essentially an inward move¬
ment as the way of passing to the world beyond. Najm Kobra
describes by meticulous analyses and reference to his personal
experience this process of internalization: it is a gradual
deepening of the dhikr in three stages. As it was recalled above,
the phenomena described relate not to the physical organism
but to the physiology of the subtle body and its organs.

A first and still incomplete phase of penetration is marked
by acoustic phenomena which may be painful and even
dangerous: in such a case (as Najm was strictly advised by his
shaykh), it is absolutely necessary to interrupt the dhikr until

IV. Visio Smaragdina

everything returns to normal (§§45 ff.) The two other phases
are described as the fall or absorption of the dhikr first into the
heart, then into the sirr, or “secret,” the transconsciousness.
“When the dhikr is immersed in the heart, the heart is then
sensed as though it were itself a well and the dhikr a pail low¬
ered into it to draw up water,” or, according to another image
of the same experience: the heart is ’Isa ibn Maryam, and the
dhikr is the milk that nourishes him. Thus we find again the
theme of the birth of the spiritual Child (supra II, 1), a theme
whose equivalent is reiterated by so many mystics and which
led the Sufis to regard Maryam as the typification of the mystic
soul (§49). Other descriptions given by Najm Kobra speak of an
opening produced by the dhikr on the top of the head, through
which “descend on you first a darkness (of natural existence),
then a fiery light, then the green light of the heart” (ibid.)-, or
again, of a wound in the side through which the heart and its
Holy Ghost escape like a horseman with his mount and make
their way up to the divine places, (mahadir al-Haqq, the to-jtol of
the Gnostics, supra) (§50). Let us not necessarily infer that this
indicates some outer stigmatization. None of this takes place in
the outer sensory world, nor in the “imaginary” world, but only
in the mundus imaginalis (’alam al-mithal), the imaginative world
to which belong organs of the same nature in the human being,
namely the centers of subtle physiology (the latifa). In a final
phase, the dhikr is intermingled so intimately with the funda¬
mental being of the mystic that were the latter to abandon the
dhikr, the dhikr would not abandon him. “Its fire does not cease
to blaze, its lights no longer disappear. Without interruption
you see lights rising and lights descending. The flames of the
fire are all around you—very pure, very ardent, and very
strong (§51).”

6. The Green Light

Lights ascending, lights descending: the dhikr sinks down into
the well of the heart and at the same time lifts the mystic up out
of the darkness of the well. The simultaneity of these concen¬
tric movements foretells the birth and growth of the subtle or¬
ganism of light. The descriptions become more complicated
and interwoven until they are resolved, as Najm Kobra tells us,
in the visio smaragdina to which these movements are the pre-

§6. The Green Light

lude. “Ours is the method of alchemy,” declares the shaykh. “It
involves extracting the subtle organism of light from beneath
the mountains under which it lies imprisoned” (§12). “It may
happen that you visualize yourself as lying at the bottom of a
well and the well seemingly in lively downward movement. In
reality it is you who are moving upward” (ibid.). This ascent
(reminding of the vision of Hermes in SohravardI, his ascent to
the battlements of the Throne), is the gradual emergence from
the mountains which, as we have already been told (supra IV,
2), are the four elementary natures constituting the physical
organism. The inner states accompanying this emergence are
translated into visions of deserts, even “cities, countries,
houses, which come down from above toward you and later
disappear below you, as though you were seeing a dike on the
shore crumble and disappear into the sea” (§12).

This correspondence is precisely what provides the mystic
with a decisive method by which to verify the reality of his
visions; it is a guarantee against illusions, for it demands the main¬
tenance of a rigorous balance.

You come to gaze with your own eyes on what you had until
then only known theoretically, through the intellect. When you
envision yourself as submerged in a sea, and yet making your way
across it, know that this is the elimination of superfluous fetal
requirements originating from the element Water. If the sea is
clear and if suns or lights or flames are drowned in it, know that it
is the sea of mystic gnosis. When you envision rain descending,
know that it is a dew which falls from the places of Divine Mercy to
vivify the earths of hearts slumbering in death. When you
visualize a flame in which you are first entirely engulfed and from
which you then free yourself, know that this is the destruction of
the elements surrounding the fetus that originate in the element
Fire. Finally, when you see before you a great wide space, an im¬
mensity opening onto the far distance, while above you there is
clear pure Air and you perceive on the far horizon the colors
green, red, yellow, blue, know that you are about to pass, borne aloft
through this air, to the field of these colors. The colors are those
of the spiritual states experienced inwardly. The color green is the
sign of the life of the heart; the color of ardent pure fire is the sign
of the vitality of spiritual energy, 79 signifying the power to ac¬
tualize. If this fire is dim, it denotes in the mystic a state of fatigue
and affliction following the battle with the lower ego and the Dev¬
il. Blue is the color of this lower ego. Yellow indicates a lessening
of activity. All these are suprasensory realities in dialogue with the
one who experiences them in the twofold language of inner feel-

IV. Visio Smaragdina

ing ( dhawq) and visionary apperception. These are two com¬
plementary witnesses, for you experience inwardly in yourself what you
visualize with your inner sight, and reciprocally you visualize with your
inner sight precisely what you experience in yourself (§ 13).

The shaykh formulates in this way the very law of balance
which makes it possible to authenticate these visions of colored
lights, and is all the more necessary since it is a matter, not of
optical perceptions, but of phenomena perceived by the organ
of inner sight; balance makes it possible to discriminate and dis¬
tinguish them from “hallucinations.” Discrimination is in fact
established to the extent that the inner state experienced in
reality is verified by its correspondence with the state which
would be brought about by the outer perception of such and
such a color. To that extent, what is in question is certainly no
illusion but a real visualization and a sign, that is to say, the col¬
oration of real objects and events whose reality, of course, is not
physical but suprasensory, psycho-spiritual. This is why these
colored photisms are in the full sense of the word witnesses —
witnesses of what you are, of what your vision is worth, and
prefigure the vision of the personal “heavenly Witness.” The
importance of the color green (the color of the pole) derives
from this whole context, since it is the color of the heart and of
the vitality of the heart (§14). Now, the heart is the homologue
of the Throne, of the pole which is the threshold of the beyond.
And so we recognize here more than one feature already figur¬
ing in Sohravardf s Recital of the Exile.

“Green is the color that outlasts the others. 80 From this color
emanate flashing, sparkling rays. This green may be absolutely
pure or it may become tarnished. Its purity proclaims the dom¬
inant note of the divine light; its dullness results from a return
of the darkness of nature” (§15). Just as the mountain of Qaf
(the psycho-cosmic mountain, supra III, 1) wholly takes on the
coloration of the Emerald Rock which is its summit (the pole,
the cosmic north), so “is the heart a subtle organ which reflects
suprasensory things and realities that revolve around it. The
color of the thing is reproduced in the subtle organ (latifa) it
faces, just as forms are reflected in mirrors or in pure water . . .
the heart is a light in the depths of the well of nature, like
Joseph’s light in the well into which he was thrown” (§16).

And so from then on, in this light, the vicissitudes of the

§6. The Green Light

ascent out of the well begin to take shape. The first time that
the well is revealed to you it shows you a depth to which no
depth perceived physically can be compared. Whereas in the
waking state you are on the way to becoming familiar with it,
when you visualize it in a state where the outer senses are
under restraint (or “missing,” that is, in the suprasensory
ghayba), you are shaken by such terror that you think you are
about to die. And then, suddenly at the mouth of the well the
extraordinary green light begins to shine. From then on, un¬
forgettable marvels show themselves to you, those of the
Malakut (the world of the Animae coelestes, the esoteric aspect of
the visible heavens), those of the Jabarut (the world of the
Cherubim, of the divine Names). You experience the most con¬
tradictory feelings: exultation, terror, attraction. At the end of
the mystic way, you will see the well below you. In the course of
the ascent, the whole of the well is changed into a well of light
or of green color. “Dark at the beginning, because it was the
dwelling-place of devils, it is now luminous with green light, be¬
cause it has become the place to which descend the Angels and
the divine Compassion” (§17). Here Najm Kobra testifies to the
angelophanies which were granted to him: the emergence
from the well under the guidance of four Angels surrounding
him; the descent of the saklna (the shekhina), a group of Angels
who descend into the heart; or else the vision of a single Angel
bearing him up as the prophet was borne up (§§19-21). 81

And then all the spiritual Heavens, the inner Heavens of
the soul, the seven planes of being which have their counter¬
parts in the man of light shine multicolored in the rainbow of
the visio smaragdina.

Know that to exist is not limited to a single act. There is no act
of being such that above it one does not discover an act of being
even more definite and more beautiful than the one preceding it,
until finally one reaches the divine Being. On the mystic journey
there is a well corresponding to each act of being. The categories
of being are limited to seven; it is to this that the number of the
Earths and the Heavens alludes. 82 Therefore, when you have
risen up through the seven wells in the different categories of
existence, lo and behold, the Heaven of the sovereign condition
(robubiya) and its power are revealed to you. Its atmosphere is a
green light whose greenness is that of a vital light through which
flow waves eternally in movement towards one another. This

IV. Visio Smaragdina

green color is so intense that human spirits are not strong enough
to bear it, though it does not prevent them from falling into mys¬
tic love with it. And on the surface of this heaven are to be seen
points more intensely red than fire, ruby or cornelian, which ap¬
pear lined up in groups of five. On seeing them, the mystic experi¬
ences nostalgia and a burning desire; he aspires to unite with
them (§18).

7. The Senses of the Suprasensory World

We shall understand the meaning of these glowing constella¬
tions after hearing a description where the theme of the ascent
out of the well is repeated from the point of view of the inner
states or events visualized in this way. What you visualize, ac¬
cording to the shaykh’s teaching, are the stages of your inner
ascent, that is, the very facts of your inner experience. Now,
what is the content of this experience? It is the growth of the
man of light, the transmutation of his senses into organs of
light, into “suprasensory senses.” Here the physiology of the
man of light, involving a whole doctrine of symbolic forms, re¬
capitulates the itinerarium ad visionem smaragdinam from another
aspect. In other words, the colors characterizing the colored
photisms of visionary apperception signify, to put it briefly, the
transmutation of the sensory by a transmutation of the senses
into “suprasensory senses.”

The process is minutely described by Najm Kobra. It can be
no more than summarized here. We already know that there is
a strict interconnection between the feeling of a mystic state
and visionary apperception, the latter being the visualization of
the former.

But there is a difference in that the visionary apperception
presupposes the opening of the inner eye by the removal of the
veil which darkened it, whereas the feeling of mystic experience
(dhawq) is caused by a transmutation of the being and of the spirit.
The mystical experience is the intimate feeling that an event is
taking place within you. This transmutation includes a transmuta¬
tion of the faculties of sensory perception. The five senses are
changed into other senses (§41).

And what is essential here can no doubt be expressed as
follows: an inversion which brings about a suprasensory per¬
ception of the sensory, that is, perception of the sensory in the
mundus imaginalis which SohravardI calls the heavenly Earth of

§7. The Senses of the Suprasensory World

Hurqalya (the Terra lucida, in the cosmic north), familiar to all
visonary mystics such as, for example, Ibn ’Arab!, 83 for whom it
is the place of transfigurations, the place where the imaginative
power (Imaginatrix) operates to produce scenes in which there
is no tinge of demonic, twilight “fantasy.”

Looking back briefly, we can see the distance that has been
covered along the mystic Way. At the beginning visionary ap¬
perception is directed to the figures and images originating in
the sensory world; later it directly perceives persons, essences
(i dhawat ), and it is then (and the concomitance must be stressed)
that the colored photisms come about. More explicitly: the in¬
tellect, like a hunter, begins by being on the lookout for sup¬
rasensory realities (the ma’ani, the hidden, “esoteric” contents).
It has a twofold net for catching them: the imaginative and the
representative faculties. The visual faculty is as it were his dog,
his pointer. The imagination clothes the ma’ani in appropriate
attire; for example, it gives a contemptible enemy the form of a
dog, a noble and generous enemy the form of a lion, etc. The
science of the ta'blr of dreams 84 is founded on this, the in¬
terpretation of symbols, that is to say of indirect perceptions.
(§42)

However, should one say the events directly perceived in
Hurqalya are only symbols? If it is more fitting to say “nothing
less” than symbols, thereby referring to the quality that causes a
thing to “symbolize with” another, does this not mean to say
that this synchronism already postulates precisely what follows
from the inversion described above? New senses perceive directly
the order of reality corresponding to them. At this stage, in
fact, the intellect realizes how deceptive are the senses which
previously suggested to it that nothing is real except what is
physically seen, tasted and touched. Now it has discovered
“another mode of sensory perception” ( ihsas akhar), “suprasen¬
sory senses” (hiss ghaybl —all of this precise terminology must be
noted), and consequently an active Imagination, other than the
imagination that is forced to adhere to the data of the physical
senses. The intellect now refuses to believe in the data from the
previous way of sensing things. 85 It is no longer interested in
“hunting,” since it perceives directly. “Henceforth, spiritual
realities are displayed to it in colors, because the synchronism of
colors and inner vision is now established.”

IV. Visio Smaragdina

In still other words, a decisive event has taken place: the
colors are evidence of perfect internalization, perfect concor¬
dance between the state experienced and the event visualized,
and this is what constitutes the transmutation of the physical
senses into “suprasensory senses” or into the “senses of the
suprasensory world,” into organs of light. The perception of
the colored photisms coincides with the moment when these
suprasensory senses come into action as the organs of the man
of light, of the “particle of the divine light.” “All the ma’am
return to their source in the heart; everything becomes fixed in
a single color, the green which is the color of the vitality of the
heart” (§43). Here again, in the inner Heavens of resplendent
emerald green, a star emerges, reddish purple, the color that,
according to Najm Kobra, heralds the Intelligence in its
twofold form: 86 that of the macrocosm ( Insan Kablr, Homo
maximus), namely the Angel-Logos, the theophany of the Inac¬
cessible, and that of the microcosm, another name for the nafs
lawwama, which, as we have seen, being the light-consciousness
casting off the shadow, thus makes the state of “pacified soul”
accessible to the heart whose vitality is proclaimed by the green
light. The visionary coherence of the figures and images is
striking.

8. The Orbs of Light

And so the event experienced (the ascent from the well) and
the visualizations (the colored photisms) are synchronic and
mutually verify each other, because they take place at the same
time as the opening of the man of light, that is, of the organs of
light (the suprasensory senses) of his subtle physiology. Other
photisms described by Najm Kobra now tell us of his growth,
which will continue until the visualization of the “Invisible
Guide,” the “heavenly Witness,” is reached. This growth is
proclaimed by the vision of orbs of light forming the antithesis
to the circle of darkness perceived by the mystic in the begin¬
ning, when his lower ego (nafs ammara) was still projecting a
shadow. Each of the senses transmuted into “suprasensory
senses,” or rather each of the subtle organs of light correspond¬
ing to the physical senses, is heralded by a light which is proper
to it. Thus there is a light of speech, a light of hearing, etc.

§£. The Orbs of Light

(§57). 87 However, these latter are not yet experienced in the
aspect of the geometrical figures so characteristic of some of
Najm Kobra’s visualizations, such as circles which manifest the
face in the final stage of the mystic pilgrimage. Amongst other
circles, there is the double circle of the eyes, two orbs of light
which appear wherever one turns, to the right or to the left.
There is the circle of the divine bight which is manifested as
equidistant from the two eyes. There is the circle of the vital
pneuma (da’irat al-ruh), etc. (§57).

The double circle of the two eyes comes to be seen as of
predominant significance, for, to the degree that the “Inner
Heavens” are purified, it becomes bigger until it shows the cir¬
cle of the complete face and finally the aura of the whole “per¬
son of light.” The phases of the appearance of this orb of light
allow us to make various preliminary comparisons. It passes, in
fact, through stages of growth corresponding to the phases of
the Moon, starting from the new moon. Because this growth is
simultaneously the passage to the “Inner Heavens” (Spirit and
Heaven are one and the same thing, we have been told), the
mystic thus inwardly experiences the twenty-eight lunar sta¬
tions which correspond to the twenty-eight letters of the Arabic
alphabet, since the latter, interpreted as letters of the
“philosophical alphabet,” are engendered by the heaven of the
Moon (§ 111). 88

The double circle of the light of the eyes (or eyes of light)
grows as the mystic journey progresses. Allusion was made
above (IV, 6 in fine) to the seven categories of being, to the
seven heavens which have their counterparts in the mystic’s
inner world. The growth of the orbs of light refers to the inner
ascent through seven strata, from each of which proceed the
“letters” of each Heaven and which, according to Semnan! ( in¬
fra VI), are the latlfa, the subtle organs of the physiology of the
man of light. Furthermore, whatever their differences, there is
something in common between the circles of which Najm
Kobra speaks and every other vision or diagram in the form of
a circle made known to us from other sources (Hallaj, the
Druses), just as there is homology of function between the latlfa
of Semnan! and the chakras which are the centers of conscious¬
ness and the organs of suprasensory perception in Mahayana
Buddhism.

IV. Visio Smaragdina

“When such and such a part of the inner Heaven gradually
becomes pure, the color of that Sky and its magnitude in rela¬
tion to the preceding Heaven become visible to the mystic, until
finally the circle coincides with the entire face (§115).” It may
even happen, for example, when a state of happiness succeeds
distress, or when fear changes to familiarity, or when torpor is
succeeded by ardent desire, that all the circles of light of the
face are manifested at the same time. It then seems to the mys¬
tic that the August Face itself is revealed to him, irradiated by
flaming circles which surround it with hymns of praise: “In¬
voluntarily he utters: ‘Glory be to me! Glory be to me! How
sublime my state!’ 89 —when he finds himself wholly immersed
in this light. Or else, retaining a sense of himself, he will utter
in the third person: ‘Glory be to him! Glory be to him! How
sublime is his state!’(§ 115).”

9. The “Heavenly Witness”

And so now we come to the innermost secret of the mystical
experience, to the decisive event already pre-sensed in the
splendors of the “emerald vision.” The alternation between the
first and the third person, the substitution of the one for the
other, are only another way of stating the same paradox—
procreated-procreator, Contemplated-Contemplator—which
the theme of Perfect Nature had already allowed us to grasp as
being the supreme expression of individual spiritual initiation.
In this realization of reciprocity alone can the features of the
August Face be fleetingly glimpsed: a face of light which is
your own face because you are yourself a particle of Its light.
What the mystic, by virtue of his ardent desire, pursues and
experiences is not a collective relationship shared by all alike in
respect to a singular object, is not a relationship identical for all
to which everyone has an equal claim in respect to one and the
same object. No, this relationship is unique, individual, un-
shareable, because it is a relationship of love. It is not a filial
relationship, but rather a marital one. An individual, unshared
relationship of this nature can only be manifested, repre¬
sented, and expressed by a figure which attests to the real pres¬
ence of one alone to one alone and for one alone, in a dialogue
unus-ambo. The figure of the “Heavenly Witness,” of the su-

§9. The “Heavenly Witness”

prasensory personal Guide, thus guarantees with such certainly
a theophany perceived by love alone, corresponding to a feel¬
ing of marital relationship, that its most characteristic
manifestations—the flaming of photisms bearing witness to the
reunion of “like with like”—come about at the moment of a
state of love carried to its climax. The mystical experience de¬
scribed by Najm Kobra thus comes to accord with the forms
and experience of celestial love in Iranian Sufism.

When the circle of the face has become pure [writes the
shaykh], “it effuses lights as a spring pours forth its water, so that
the mystic has a sensory perception (i.e., through the suprasen-
sory senses) that these lights are gushing forth to irradiate his
face. This outpouring takes place between the two eyes and be¬
tween the eyebrows. Finally it spreads to cover the whole face. At
that moment, before you, before your face, there is another Face
also of light, irradiating lights; while behind its diaphanous veil a
sun becomes visible, seemingly animated by a movement to and
fro. In reality this Face is your own face and this sun is the sun of
the Spirit ( shams al-ruh) that goes to and fro in your body. Next,
the whole of your person is immersed in purity, and suddenly you
are gazing at a person of light ( shakhmin nur) who is also irradiat¬
ing lights. The mystic has the sensory perception of this irradia¬
tion of lights proceeding from the whole of his person. Often the
veil falls and the total reality of the person is revealed, and then
with the whole of your body you perceive the whole. The opening
of the inner sight (baslra, the visual organ of light) begins in the
eyes, then in the face, then in the chest, then in the entire body.
This person of light ( shakhs nuranl) before you is called in Sufi
terminology the suprasensory Guide (mooaddam al-ghayb). It is also
called the suprasensory personal Master (shaykh al-ghayb), or again
the suprasensory spiritual Scales (mizam al-ghayb) (§66). 90

It has been given many other names, all reminiscent of the
“midnight sun,” the witness in the vision of Hermes described
by Sohravardi (supra II, 1 and III, 1). Najm Kobra refers to the
Guide of light as the Sun of the heart, the Sun of certainty, the
Sun of faith, the Sun of knowledge, the spiritual Sun of the
Spirit. 91 And more explicitly still he says: “Know that the mystic
has a Witness (shahid). He it is who is called the personal Master
in the suprasensory world. He carries the mystic up toward the
Heavens; thus it is in the Heavens that he appears (§69).”

The personal Guide in the suprasensory world is thus ex¬
pressly designated as the shahid. It is a characteristic term in the
vocabulary of those spiritual seekers who, in Sufism, should

IV. Visio Smaragdina

rightly be called the “faithful lovers,” because of the “divine
service” they render to beauty by contemplating it as the
greatest of all theophanies. 92 When Najm Kobra refers more
precisely to the “Witness in the Heavens” (shahid fi’l sama), the
heavenly Witness, this epithet further accentuates the essential
aspect of the shahid, of the “witness of contemplation,” medi¬
tated similarly by mystics such as Ruzbehan or Ibn ’Arab!, and
it immediately places the original expression of the shaykh’s
visionary apperception in the context of Iranian Sufism; lastly,
this designation should make it impossible to distort the idea of
the Shahid by an erroneous psychological interpretation and
bring it down to the notion of the “Double” as being the shadow.

For a “faithful lover” like Ruzbehan of Shiraz, every beauti¬
ful face is a theophanic witness because it is a mirror without
which the divine Being would remain a Deus absconditus. It is
likewise significant that in Najm Kobra the “Witness in the
Heavens” should be pre-sensed in the aspect of an outburst of
flame visualized in the Heavens, and accompanied by a state of
intense love. Between the heavenly person of the Guide of light
and the object—that is to say, the earthly person loved with a
celestial love—the relationship is an epiphany, since it even
gives rise to the symptom visible to the eyes of the suprasensory
senses of the presence of the “witness in the Heavens.” Since
the latter is visible to the “eyes of light” only to the degree that
the man of light frees himself from the crude ore of darkness,
there is evidence that celestial love is the teacher initiating this
liberation. This is why the idea of the shahid finds its place in a
complete doctrine of mystical love, bringing together the
earthly loved one and the “witness in the heavens” manifested
as the Guide of light. Needless to say the phenomena here
again have to do with the physiology of the “suprasensory
senses.”

Lo and behold! [writes Najm Kobra] while sojourning in
Egypt, in a small town on the banks of the Nile, I fell passionately
in love with a young girl. For many days, I remained practically
without food and without drink, and in this way the flame of love
within me became extraordinarily intense. My breath exhaled
flames of fire. And each time I breathed out fire, lo and behold,
from the height of heaven someone was also breathing out fire
which came to meet my own breath. The two shafts of flame
blended between the Heavens and me. For a long time I did not

§9. The “Heavenly Witness”

know who it was who was there at the place where the two I lames
came together. But at last 1 understood that it was my witness in
Heaven (§83).

Nothing could illustrate better than this experiental ver¬
ification what we have been given to understand by the theme
of the coming together of “like with like” (supra IV, 4): “every
time a flame arises from you, behold a flame comes down from
the heavens toward you.” 93

Another of Najm Kobra’s confessions suggests to us in a
manner no less specific the connection constituting celestial
love, by introducing the theme of the sor or spiritualis.

I departed 94 [he writes], and behold, there appeared to me a
Heaven that resembled the book of the Qoran. Four-sided figures
were inscribed therein, outlined by dotted lines. The dots formed
some verses from the sura Ta-ha (20:39-41): “I shed thee love
from Me; that thou mightest be before my eyes when thy sister
came to pass by.” 95 Having understood these verses, I began to
recite them. And it came to me by inspiration that their meaning
related to a woman I knew who bore the name of Banafsha , 9B
while her name in the suprasensory realm was Istaftin (§160).

Do not look for the meaning of this last name in some Arabic or
Persian dictionary; only Najm Kobra can explain it to us. Re¬
turning to the theme of the esoteric Names borne by certain
beings in the suprasensory realm (§176), he interprets the
name in question as signifying the “’Ayesha of her time.” The
very fact that the earthly woman bears an “esoteric” name, that
is to say, has a name in Heaven (a name in the suprasensory
world which is the world of the Guide and of the personal mas¬
ter), indicates, in a manner that is as discreet as it is eloquent,
what celestial love essentially implies: the perception of a beau¬
tiful being in her heavenly dimension, through senses which
have become organs of light; precisely, the organs of the “per¬
son of light.”

And that is why Najm Kobra’s doctrine of love connects es¬
sentially with the doctrine of those for whom, like Ruzbehan,
human and divine love are by no means opposed to one
another as a dilemma demanding that the mystic make a
choice. They are two forms of the same love; passages in one
and the same book which one must learn to read (with “eyes of
light”). To pass from one to another does not consist in the

IV. Visio Smaragdina

transfer of love from one object to another, for God is not an
object-, God is the absolute Subject. To pass from one form of
love to another implies the metamorphosis of the subject, of the
’ashiq. This is what the entire doctrine of Ruzbehan 97 and that of
Najm Kobra are intended to indicate, so that we should not be
surprised if, for the same reason, Najm does not make the
same distinction as do some devotees and pious ascetics be¬
tween divine and human love. For the metamorphosis of the
subject resolves the apparent dissonances in the paradoxes, the
“pious blasphemies,” of ecstadcs in love. It may be that the
lover, addressing the earthly beauty, the object of his love, cries
out: “You are my Lord: I have no Lord but you!” Perhaps those
are blasphemous words; however, they arise from an emotional
state, from an inner compulsion, which is neither conscious nor
voluntary. These words are not uttered by the lover, but by the
living flame of love, for the fire of love is fed by the beloved
and the lover can but speak in the inspired language of the
moment: “For you, I am lost to the religious and profane
worlds; you are my impiety and you are my faith; you are what
I was yearning for and you are the end and fulfillment of my
desire; you are myself (anta ana)." The vehemence of this lyricism
is finally appeased in a long quotation from Hallaj: “I am filled
with wonder about you and me, that through yourself you
make me as nothing to myself, that you are so close to me that I
come to think that you are me.” (§81) 98

Still further (§101), Najm Kobra quotes another couplet at¬
tributed to Hallaj: “I am he (or she) whom I love; he (or she)
whom I love is me.” The anonymous Iranian commentator on
Ruzbehan introduces this same couplet to accompany the
theme of Majnun when he has become the “mirror of God” 99
(the state of Majnun to which the commentator relates the
same Qoranic verses as those read by Najm Kobra in the con¬
stellations of the inner Heaven as relating to his soror spiritualis,
because he knew her heavenly name). The shaykh expresses
this further by saying: “It may be that the lover is entirely con¬
sumed by love, then he is himself love” (§82). That is exactly
the doctrine of Ahmad Ghazall. 100 When the lover has become
the very substance of love, there is no longer any opposition be¬
tween subject and object, between the lover and the beloved.
That is the metamorphosis of the subject expressed by the

§10. The Scales and the Angel

Neoplatonic identity of love, lover and beloved, and that is the
divine form of love. When Najm Kobra describes the four as¬
cending degrees of love, he is concerned with this metamor¬
phosis. To wonder why he makes no distinction between
human love and divine love would be quite beside the point,
would indicate the failure to perceive the meaning of the con¬
comitance experienced in the reunion of the two flames be¬
tween Heaven and Earth, of the synchronism between the
manifestation of the Witness in Heaven, the suprasensory
Guide, the Sun of the heart, and the knowledge of the
“esoteric” name, of the “name in Heaven,” of the earthly be¬
loved. Individual initiation ends here in this inner revelation;
these are the steps proclaimed by the colored photisms, from
the circle of darkness and the blue light of the lower ego, still
given over entirely to sensory and sensual perceptions, up to
the visio smaragdina of the Throne iridescent in orbs of light. In
this way one can foresee what is common to the profoundly
original spirituality of Najm Kobra and that of his great con¬
temporaries, Sohravardi, Ruzbehan, Ibn ’Arab!.

10. The Scales and the Angel

Among the expressions qualifying the heavenly Guide in rela¬
tion to the colored photisms, there is one, “the suprasensory
Scales” (mizan al-ghayb), that shows more particularly the
homology between Najm Kobra’s heavenly Witness and the
other manifestations of the same archetype analyzed above
(supra II), especially the manifestation which exemplifies it best
of all, namely, the figure of Daena-Fravarti in Zoroastrian
Mazdeism. Furthermore the theme of the scales allows us to
recognize for certain what the shadow is and where the shadow
is; it forces us to accept that three-dimensionality of the inner
world without which, as previously indicated, orientation to¬
ward the pole would remain ambivalent and ambiguous, or
rather would not in fact guarantee any sense of direction.

Najm Kobra stresses this symbolic qualification several
times. The entire question for us is to interpret correctly what
the scales indicate. What in fact happens in the case where it is
said that the suprasensory Guide shows himself, or rather hides
himself under blackness, darkness? “The suprasensory Wit-

IV. Visio Smaragdina

ness, the suprasensory Guide, the suprasensory Scales: this is
what you are shown when you close your eyelids. According to
whether what appears to you is light or darkness, your witness
(shahid) is light or darkness.” Or, to put it more exactly, in the
latter case it means that you have no witness, no heavenly part¬
ner: he is not there at all. This is exactly why “he is called the
scales, because by him the states of the soul (or your ego) are
weighed as to their purity or disfigurement.” 101 As a balance, its
role is therefore to indicate whether there is excess or defi¬
ciency in the spiritual state, that is, whether light prevails over
darkness or vice versa (§69). If it so happens that at the mid¬
point of the mystical journey, the two circles of light of the eyes
appear, it is the sign of an excellent spiritual state. If they re¬
main hidden, this concealment indicates a lack, a preponder¬
ance of the dark nature. Furthermore, they may appear bigger
or smaller; more frequently or less: all these variations corre¬
spond to an excess or a deficit on the scales (§70).

The phases corresponding to the transmutations of the soul
can be recapitulated thus: At the beginning there may be dark¬
ness (the man still without light, without a witness, “without a
fravard”). At the midpoint, two circles of light, increasing or
diminishing; at the last, complete visibility of the person of
light.

It may happen that this person (the Witness) appears to you
at the beginning of the mystical journey; but then you only see a
black color, a black figure. Then it disappears. But the other (that
is, the person of the Witness revealed to the person of light) will
no longer leave you; or, more accurately, you are that person, for
it enters into you; it is conjoined to you. If, at the beginning, it
appeared to you as black in color, it was because the veil of your
own dark existence was hiding it. But when you make this dark
existence disappear from before it, and when the flame of the
dhikr and of ardent desire have consumed this barrier with fire,
then the pure jewel is freed from its ore. Then it becomes a per¬
son wholly of light (§66).

The text is highly condensed. It echoes in a way the theme
of the robe of light, of th e Song of the Pearl in the Acts of Thomas ,
at least as the Song is rendered in a symbolic recital in the En¬
cyclopedia of the “Brethren of the pure heart” and by
Nasiroddln Tusl. 101a Here, once the garment of darkness has
been burned and consumed, the person of light becomes

§/ 0 . The Scales and the Angel

visible. There, the garment of wretchedness and dirt having
been shed at the moment of the return to the “orient”, the mys¬
tery of the robe of light is explained in terms that overcome the
difficulty of expressing the unus-ambo: two, distinct from one
another, yet but one in similar form. Here also there is a distinc¬
tion: the heavenly Witness can disappear, be absent, while you
remain there, without it. The celestial Witness is a person of
light and is visible only for and by your person of light (like can
be seen only by like). The disc of darkness, the Black figure
sometimes visualized by the Spiritual at the beginning of his
mystical journey, is not the celestial Guide, the Witness in
Heaven. The blackness, or darkness, is precisely the absence of
the Witness of light; the black color is not the Witness, but the
shadow, not its shadow, but the Ahrimanian shadow (active
negativity) which prevents him from being seen. This shadow is
not he, but you, for it is the shadow projected by your nafs
ammara, the sensual soul, your lower ego. Seeing only this
shadow, you cannot see your heavenly Witness. And if he is not
present to you, how would he see you, how would you be pre¬
sent to him? When he is your Witness, it is because you are
present to him; he is the Witness who contemplates you, you
are what he contemplates. But for that very reason he is simul¬
taneously present to you, he is what you contemplate. For he
contemplates you with the same look with which you con¬
template him. Every mystic has attempted to formulate this
subtle reciprocity of roles. Here the twofold nuance of the
word shahid, the “eye-witness” who attests, and “the one who is
present,” helps to express the dialogical situation . 102 The Wit¬
ness can only respond for you in the correspondence of a co¬
response. This is why one cannot speak of a shahid who is not
there; that would be an “absent presence.” If he is absent, if
only the Black figure is there, it is because you are without a
shahid, without a co-respondent, or personal Guide. As a corol¬
lary, his appearance and degree of visibility are the scales
measuring what you truly are: light or darkness, or still a mix¬
ture of the two. Thereby (and this is important for understand¬
ing the structure of Iranian Sufism) the idea of the shahid in
Najm Kobra unites, as emphasized above, with the idea of
theophanic witness, a witness of contemplation, for the mystical
“Faithful lovers.”

IV. Visio Smaragdina

At that very point, in fact, the shahid denotes the being
whose beauty bears witness to the divine beauty, by being the
divine revelation itself, the theophany par excellence. As the
place and form of the theophany, he bears witness to this
beauty to the divine Subject Himself; because he is present to
the divine Subject as His witness, it means that God is con¬
templating Himself in him, is contemplating the evidence of
Himself. So, when the mystic takes this theophanic witness as
witness to his contemplation, the former is the witness of divine
Beauty, present to the divine Beauty contemplating itself in
him; it is God contemplating Himself in this contemplation of
the mystic directed toward His Witness. 103 Najm Kobra’s idea
of a “Witness in Heaven” and Ruzbehan’s idea of a “theophanic
witness” meet in the same testimony. In both cases the appari-
tional form changes according to the state of the contemplator.
Either the man has no shahid-, he sees nothing but shadow,
darkness, the Black; the form of his love is confined to the
sensual form because of his incapacity to perceive the
theophany. (Just as in our day certain loud assertions that art
no longer has to refer to beauty finally crush their authors
under the whole weight of the testimony that they are offering
against themselves.) Or else the man of light, the “precious
gem” having been freed from its ore, “perceives his likeness”:
the orb of light, the flames rising to the Heavens of the soul. As
you look upon the shahid, so does he look upon you, and such
you yourself are. Your contemplation is worth whatever your
being is worth; your God is the god you deserve; He bears wit¬
ness to your being of light or to your darkness.

So finally we hear again what was already pre-sensed in the
Zoroastrian notion of Daena-Fravarti: another dimension of
the soul, the dimension of a soul which has a personal Witness
“in Heaven,” which is vouched for by this Witness to the extent
that his own being bears witness to him and for him. It would
be impossible to realize what this means if one were limited to
the one-dimensional perspective offered by current psychol¬
ogy. The bi-unitary structure, whose symbol, as we have seen, is
not 1 + 1 but 1 x 1 , is the structure that postulates a dimension
of individual personal transcendence, and as an idea quite differ¬
ent, certainly, from the idea of a transpersonal evolution. An
Initiation that is typically individual, with degrees and a figura-

§20. The Scales and the Angel

tion such as we have just been brought to recognize, is specifi¬
cally what opens up this other dimension; it does not relate the
essential individuality either to collective mediation or to any
socialized or socializable religious form. All depends upon
whether our ability to comprehend, our hermeneutics, has or has
not sufficient dimensions at its disposal. Accordingly, a spiritu¬
ality as original as that of Najm Kobra, attentive to the percep¬
tion of signs of this essential individuation in suprasensory col¬
ored photisms, may either orient our search toward a new
horizon or possibly cripple it because of a misinterpretation re¬
sulting in disorientation.

Let us try to construct the diagram suggested to us from the
outset by the threefold structure of the soul {supra IV, 3). On
the lower plane: nafs ammara, the lower ego, the imperative
psyche, apparent in the disk of shadow, the Black figure, the
black cloud turning to dark blue. On the upper plane: nafs
motma'yanna, the pacified soul, the green color, emerald splen¬
dor and orbs of light. Between the two: the soul-consciousness
{nafs eawwama) perceived in vision as a great red sun; this is the
intellect {’aql), consciousness proper. In terms of the scales : the
“witness in Heaven” becomes manifest to the extent that the
soul-consciousness, placed in the center, empties the “pan” of
the scales containing the lower soul, and gives greater weight to
the “pan” of the pacified soul which is the heart, that is to say,
the subtle organ so named by the Sufis. And this is why it was
possible, from that point on, to give an unambiguous answer to
a first question: to whom did the shadow, the black color
visualized at the beginning, belong? In other words, could the
“heavenly witness” ever have been darkness? No, this darkness
was the darkness of your own nature, whose opacity was op¬
posed to the transparency that conditions the reciprocal pres¬
ence of the man of light to the guide of light and ultimately the
penetration of the Image of the Guide into you to the point
where it may be possible to say “you are he” (1 x 1). And so it
was your own shadow, your IblTs or nafs ammara which was
projecting and interposing a veil that the flame of the dhikr
finally set on fire and consumed; this was the only thing that
was making the shaykh al-ghayb, your partner and heavenly
counterpart, invisible.

But the transmutation that is effected by no means signifies

IV. Visio Smaragdina

that the old Iblls, your “Iblls converted to Islam” has become
your shaykh al-ghayb, your “witness in Heaven.” Conversion of
your Iblls (your nafs ammara) to Islam is the condition on which
the shaykh al-ghayb can become visible; which is not at all to say
that Iblls becomes the “witness in Heaven.” Such a notion is
untenable because of the fundamental orientation, the polar
orientation analyzed here at the beginning: either the soul-
consciousness is not freed from its shadow, the nafs ammara, but
looks at it and through it, thus seeing nothing but shadow, its
shadow; or else the shadow has subsided and the soul has risen to
the degree of nafs motma’yanna and sees its own dimension of light.

If this is stressed to avoid confusion, it is because a question
will inevitably arise. It would be very tempting indeed to inter¬
pret the triadic diagram of the soul recalled above in terms of
consciousness and the unconscious and leave it at that. How¬
ever, can the phenomena of shadow and light, the inner pro¬
cess of which has been so minutely analyzed by Najm Kobra
and the Sufis of his school, really be translated simply by speak¬
ing of consciousness as the region of light and the unconscious
as the region of shadow? The soul-consciousness ( nafs law-
wama) is placed between the two: between the lower soul and
the higher soul, to which and by which the “witness in Heaven,”
the suprasensory Guide, is made manifest. How could one pos¬
sibly say that the “two souls” between which the soul-
consciousness is placed both belonged equally to the same re¬
gion of shadow} The first is the shadow that has to be overcome
in order for the bi-unitary structure to be restored. Is it not
then this two-dimensionality of the soul (a syzygy of lights)
which itself postulates the three-dimensionality of psycho¬
spiritual spatiality? In other words: does not the trilogy of the
soul ( supra IV, 3) force us to admit at least orientation, distinct
levels within the unconscious, in order to determine its struc¬
ture? But how can one introduce positive differentiations into
what is negative and negativity? A more serious decision has to
be made, namely, to accept all that follows from our diagram, if
we wish to avoid the mistake, already pointed out, of confusing
complementary elements with contradictory elements, which
would lead to interpreting the Fravarti, or the “witness in
Heaven,” and Iblis-Ahriman as complementary manifestations
of the same Shadow.

§/0. The Scales and the Angel

Foreseeing these difficulties, we have avoided here two
things in particular. In the first place we have avoided relating
the idea of the “witness in Heaven” to what is connoted by the
German term Doppelganger, precisely because of the ambiguity,
the shadow, attached to this term. In fact what we are speaking
of is a counterpart, a celestial, transcendent counterpart, rather
than a “double”; the idea of this heavenly partner is antithetic
to the Double whose role is suggested in a number of fantastic
tales, and there could be no question of bringing these antithe¬
ses together to form one Whole. And indeed psychological
analysis shows this Double to be the manifestation of the per¬
sonal unconscious, hence belonging to the functions of the
lower psyche, that is, the nafs ammara, the dark envelope, the
shadow, exactly what the dhikr has to destroy by fire so that the
Guide of light may become visible. What prevents the reunion
of twin lights cannot be one of its constitutive elements.

In the second place, in the few phenomenological indica¬
tions outlined here and there, we have avoided any suggestion
of a “collective unconscious.” One notices in fact a certain ten¬
dency to accentuate in this expression the adjective “collective,”
to the point of giving it the substantiality and virtues of an hypos¬
tasis: in so doing, it is simply forgotten that the purpose of
psychoanalysis, as therapy for the soul, tends essentially to foster
what it calls the process of individuation. For the same reason it
would be absurd to explain the kind of individual initiation pro¬
per to Sufism by relating it to some collective norm, whereas its
whole purpose is to free the inner man from such authority. The
predisposition to something like Sufism can exist in a multitude
of individuals, but it is not for that reason a collective disposition.
The obsessions of the present day will end by obscuring every
spiritual or cultural phenomenon that does not fit their case.

As for the construction of the diagram, urgently required,
as we foresaw a little earlier, so that our hermeneutics might
have the requisite dimensions, we should now amplify it as fol¬
lows: an anthropogony in which antithetic forces (murderer
and victim, for example) objectively represent one divine
primordial reality is one thing; an anthropogony situating man
between two worlds is quite a different thing. Man according to
Ismaelian gnosis is an intermediary—potential angel or poten¬
tial demon; his complete eschatological reality is not the sum of

IV. Visio Smaragdina

these two antithetical virtualities. Man in Ibn ’Arabi’s anthro-
pogony is likewise intermediate: situated between being and
non-being, between Light and Darkness, at the same time re¬
sponsible and respondent to both sides; he is responsible for
the Darkness to the extent that he intercepts the Light, but he is
responsible for the Light to the extent that he prevents the
Darkness from invading and governing it. 104

In Najm Kobra, the soul-consciousness is also placed be¬
tween the two. This being so, we need a diagram superimpos¬
ing the planes; it is impossible to suppose that there could be
one single invisible area, inevitably and unilaterally situated
below the visible area, that is, the area of unconsciousness. A
number of manifestations surpassing and going beyond the
bounds of the conscious activity of the soul have to be placed
not below but above consciousness. There is a subconsciousness or
infraconsciousness, corresponding to the level of the nafs ammara;
and there is a superconsciousness or supraconsciousness. corre¬
sponding to the level of the nafs motma'yanna. In the physical
order, the invisibility of an object may be due to a lack of light;
it may also be due to an excess of light, to the dazzling effect of
being too close to it. In the “suprasensory” order, that of the
“suprasensory senses” or physiology of the man of light, the
same applies. On the one hand invisibility (absence of the
shahid), which is the shadow, the Ahrimanian darkness, the ne¬
gation or captivity of the light; opposed to this the invisibility
that the disciples of Najm Kobra call the “black light,” the pre¬
origin of all that is visible, that is to say, of all light (infra, V). For
this very reason, the “black light” is the antithesis of the
Ahrimanian darkness. In both cases there is something that is
beyond the limits of consciousness. But in the first case the in¬
visibility, the absence of light, is a fact pertaining to subcon¬
sciousness: ; in the second case, invisibility due to an excess of
brilliance, to being too close to the light, is a fact pertaining to
superconsciousness or transconsciousness. And the facts of super¬
consciousness are individual facts; individually, each soul has to
overcome, as well as its own shadow, the collective shadow.

As an “exemplary fact” among the facts of superconscious¬
ness, it is necessary to recall—though the word is generally
misused—the fact referred to by the idea of vocation with all its
mysterious, imperative, irrational and inexorable connotations.

§70. The Scales and the Angel

The idea of vocation serves perhaps better than any other lor
recapitulating all that is suggested by the idea of the Angel,
conveyed to us in the theme of Daena as glory (8o£a) and
destiny (tvxv)> > n the theme of the Perfect Nature of the
Sohravardian Hermes, and finally in the theme of the “Witness
in Heaven," of the “Scales of the suprasensory world” 105 by
Najm Kobra. In such a recapitulation, the essential, undeniable
idea of individuality is seen in fact as inseparable from angelol-
ogy because it provides a basis for the idea of the Angel just as
the idea of the Angel is its own foundation.

On this basis, the idea of individuality stands firm in face of
the attempts to justify “collectivization” and nominalist con¬
cepts. It saves us from the illusion of believing that it is enough to
escape from the individual sphere and, by reaching the “social”
sphere, simultaneously to reach the divine, for it is the reverse
of the mystic’s view of the gradations of being as he scales the
mountain of Qaf to the Emerald Rock at its summit, and
emerges step by step above and beyond the natural realms—
the vegetable world, the animal world and the human species.
Step by step, a species is revealed which does not yet include
individuals; then the individual coexisting with the species that
dominates him; then the individual coexisting with the species
he dominates. Finally, from ascent to ascent, the return of the
man of light to his original pleroma postulates the idea of a
non-specific individual, of archetypal individuality whose soar¬
ing flight and power, by assuming all the virtualities of a
species, itself becomes a unique example. The idea of an indi¬
vidual who is himself his species is the idea of the Angel. 108
Leibnitz transposed it into the monadic concept of the soul and
this is what truly makes it possible to understand the idea of
vocation as relationship with the archetype. Here exactly this
specificity of an individuality being born at the end of a per¬
sonal mystical initiation is made manifest as a state of
“dualitude,” a unus-ambo structure. This bi-unity is not a union
of two contradictory elements, Ohrmazdean light and
Ahrimanian darkness, but a union of Ohrmazd and his own
Fravarti, of twins of light, of the “pacified soul” and its “witness
in Heaven,” of Hermes and his Perfect Nature, of Phos and his
guide of light, consciousness and superconsciousness. “And it is
light upon light.”

V. THE BLACK LIGHT

1. Light Without Matter

Essentially, what has just been referred to as “superconscious¬
ness” ( sirr , khafi, in Sufi terminology) cannot be a collective
phenomenon. It is always something that opens up at the end
of a struggle in which the protagonist is the spiritual individual¬
ity. One does not pass collectively from the sensory to the su-
prasensory, for this passage is the birth and expansion of the
person of light. Without doubt a mystical fraternity will result
from it, but does not exist before it (Hermes is alone as he en¬
ters the subterranean chamber following the instructions of his
Perfect Nature, supra II, 1). As we have seen, this gradual open¬
ing is marked by certain “theophanic lights” corresponding to
each stage. The correspondence of these lights, the determina¬
tion of their degree of presence by and for their “witness” is the
very thing that thematizes the motif of the shahid , 107 The
“super-individuality” of the mystic, that is to say, the tran¬
scendent dimension of the person, is conditioned by this
syzygic inseparability. Once the threshold has been crossed, the
perspective opens on the peripatetics of a secret history, the
stages of the spiritual journey, the perils and triumphs of the
person of light, the occultadons and re-appearances of his
shahid. To follow these to the end in detail would require a
thorough study of the whole of Iranian Sufism, whereas we

V. The Black Light

must limit ourselves here to pointing out some further essential
features borrowed from three or four of the great masters.
The dimension of superconsciousness is symbolically heralded
by the “black light”; according to Najm RazI and Mohammed
Lahlji, this constitutes the highest spiritual stage; according to
SemnanI, it marks the most perilous initiatic step, the stage
immediately preceding the ultimate theophany, which is
heralded by the green light. In any case there are obstacles of
the highest significance between the visio smaragdina and the
“black Light,” due to their contiguity.

The idea of “black light” (Persian nur-e siyah) is above all
what obliges us to distinguish between two dimensions which
could not be accounted for by a one-dimensional or undiffer-
entiatable unconscious. To the extent that the mystical lan¬
guage comes to “symbolize with” physical experience, it seems
that the latter perfectly illustrates the idea of a polarity not so
much between consciousness and the unconscious as between a
superconsciousness and a subconsciousness. There is one
darkness which is matter, and there is another darkness which
is an absence of matter. Physicists distinguish between the
blackness of matter and the blackness of the stratosphere. 108 On
the one hand there is the black body, a body that absorbs all light
without distinction of color; this is what is “seen” in a dark fur¬
nace. When heated it passes from black to red, then to white,
then to white-red. All this light is light absorbed by matter and
re-emitted by it. This is also so in the case of the “particle of
light” (the man of light, <£a>?-<£ci)s) absorbed in the dark well
(nafs ammara, supra III, 3), which according to Najm Kobra and
Sohravardi, is compelled by the fire of the dhikr to liberate the
particle, to “re-emit” it. This then is the black figure, the well or
dark furnace; it is the lower darkness, the infraconscious or
subconscious. But there is another light, a light-without-matter,
which becomes visible when released from this already made
matter that had absorbed it. The darkness above is the black¬
ness of the stratosphere, of stellar space, of the black Sky. In
mystical terms, it corresponds to the light of the divine Self
in-itself ( nur-e dhat), the black light of the Deus absconditus, the
hidden Treasure that aspires to reveal itself, “to create percep¬
tion in order to reveal to itself the object of its perception,” and
which thus can only manifest itself by veiling itself in the object

100

§ 1. Light Without Matter

state. This divine darkness does not refer therefore to the
lower darkness, that of the black body, the infraconsciousness
(nafs ammara), but to the black Heavens, the black Light in
which the ipseity of the Deus absconditus is pre-sensed by the
superconsciousness.

We therefore need a metaphysics of Light whose paths will
be mapped by the mystic’s spiritual experience of colors, espe¬
cially, in the present case, the experience of the Iranian Sufis.
Their visionary apperception of colored lights postulates an
idea of pure color consisting of an act of light which actualizes its
own matter, that is, which actualizes in differentiated stages the
potentiality of the “hidden Treasure” aspiring to reveal itself.
More certain and more direct than any other is the reference in
an earlier chapter that takes us back to the distinction estab¬
lished in one of the great mystical Recitals of Avicenna between
the “Darkness at the approaches to the pole” and the Darkness
reigning at the “Far West” of matter. The latter is the darkness
whose behavior in regard to light is described by physics; these
are the forces of darkness that retain the light, obstruct its pas¬
sage, the forces of the black object which absorbs light and
which in the “oriental theosophy” of Sohravardi is called by the
characteristic ancient Iranian term of barzakh (screen, barrier).
On the other hand, the Darkness at the “approaches to the
pole ” is the region of the “black Light,” which exists before all
the matter that it will itself actualize in order to be received in it
and, in it, to become visible light. The antithesis is established
between the black light of the pole and the darkness of the
material black body, and not simply between light and the
darkness of matter. Between the material black body (typified
for example by the nafs ammara) from which the light seeks to
escape and the pre-material black light (that of the divine Ip¬
seity) the whole universe of lights extends upwards and in their
actuality as lights become colors in an autonomous state of life
and substantiality.

Since their entire effort tends to free them from a matter
which would be foreign to their action and in which they are
sometimes captive (see infra VI, 1, the meaning of Manichean
painting and its influence on Persian miniatures), they do not
even need to settle on the surface of an object which could be
their prisdn in order to be colors. These lights, made into colors

101

V. The Black Light

in the very act of becoming light, have to be represented as
creating for themselves, out of their own life and nature, their
form and their space (that spissitudo spiritualis, to borrow again
an expression of Henry More’s, which is the place of the su-
prasensory perceptions described by Najm Kobra and his disci¬
ples). These pure lights (forming, according to Sohravardi, a
twofold order, longitudinal and latitudinal, “Mothers” and ar¬
chetypes) are, in the act of light which constitutes them, constitu¬
tive of their own theophanic form ( mazhar ). The “acts of light”
(photisms, ishraqat) actualize their own receptacles which make
the light visible. “Light without matter” means here the light
whose act actualizes its own matter (again according to
Sohravardi, material bodies are never the sufficient reasons for
the properties which they manifest). In relation to the matter
of the black body, invested with the forces of obscurity,
Ahrimanian darkness, it is no doubt equivalent to an immate-
rialization. More exactly it is matter in the subtle “etheric” state
(latif ), the act of the light, and not antagonistic to light; it is the
incandescence of the mundus imaginalis (’alam al-mithal ), the
world of autonomous figures and forms, the heavenly Earth of
Hurqalya “which secretes its own light.” To see things in Hur-
qalya, as certain Sufi shaykhs say, is to see them in that state
which can only be perceived by the “suprasensory senses”
(supra IV, 7). This perception is not a passively received impres¬
sion of a material object, but activity of the subject, that is, con¬
ditioned by the physiology of the man of light. In this context
the Goethean doctrine of “physiological colors” ( infra VI, 3)
finds its place spontaneously.

We shall learn further ( infra V, 3) that the “black light” is
that of the divine Ipseity as the light of revelation, which makes
one see. Precisely what makes one see, that is to say, light as abso¬
lute subject, can in nowise become a visible object. It is in this
sense that the Light of lights ( nur al-anwar), that by which all
visible lights are made visible, is both light and darkness, that is,
visible because it brings about vision, but in itself invisible.
Henceforth also when speaking of color as a mixture of light
and darkness, we should not understand it as a mixture with
the Ahrimanian shadow, even if it were only the shadow of the
black object. The seven colors emerge on the level of the most
transparent of bodies. This mixture is to be understood as the

102

§2. The Doctrine of Photisms according to Najrn Razi

relation of the act of light with the infinite potentiality which
aspires to reveal itself (”I was a hidden treasure, I wanted to be
known”), that is, as the epiphanic act in the night of the Abscon-
ditum. But this divine night is the antithesis of the Ahrimanian
darkness; it is the source of the epiphanies of the light which
the Ahrimanian darkness later seeks to engulf. The world of
colors in the pure state, that is, the orbs of light, is the totality of
the acts of this Light which makes them lights and cannot itself
be manifested except by these acts, without ever being itself
visible. And all these receptacles, these theophanic forms which
it creates in these very acts which make it manifest are always in
correlation with the state of the mystic; i.e., with the activity of
the “particle of light” in man which seeks to rediscover its
like. 1083 Perhaps we can glimpse the correlation which requires
us cn the one hand to distinguish between the superconscious
and the subconscious and on the other hand between the black
light and the blackness of the black object. And this completes the
summary of orientation which we have sought to establish in the
present essay—admittedly in very imperfect terms.

2. The Doctrine of Photisms according to Najm Razi
(1256)

Najm Razi, 109 direct disciple of Najm Kobra, is the author of a
mystical treatise in Persian still in current use today in Iranian
Sufism, wherein the chapters particularly related to our subject
deal with visionary apperceptions ( moshahadat ) and the unveil¬
ings of the suprasensory ( mokashafat ). 110 Their leitmotiv makes
the distinction between the theophanies or apparitions of di¬
vine lights which are those of the “Lights of Majesty” and the
theophanies which are those of the “Lights of Beauty.” Majesty
(i.e. rigor, inaccessible sublimity) and Beauty (fascination, at¬
traction, graciousness): these are the two great categories of
attributes which refer respectively to the divine Being as Deus
absconditus and as Deus revelatus, Beauty being the supreme
theophany, divine self-revelation. 111 In fact they are insepara¬
ble and there is a constant interplay between the inaccessible
Majesty of Beauty and the fascinating Beauty of inaccessible
Majesty. The interplay is even such that Najm Kobra, when
comparing their relation to that of the masculine and feminine

103

V. The Black LigHt

principles, perceives a transference corre sponding to a mutual
exchange of the masculine and feminine attributes (§4). And to
suggest that their twofoldness is necessary for the spiritual in¬
dividuality to be born, he quotes this saying of the Sufi Abu-
Bakr Wasiti: “The attribute of Majesty and the attribute of
Beauty intermingle; from their union thie Spirit is born. The
son is an allusion to partial reality; the father and mother an
allusion to total reality.” (§65). According to Najm RazI,
phodsms, pure lights and colored lights, refer to the attributes
of Beauty; the “black light” refers to the attributes of Majesty.
He outlines the “physiology of the man of light” concurrently
with the theory of the “unveilings of the suprasensory world.”

First of all, as a general rule, the capacity to perceive su¬
prasensory lights is proportionate to the degree of polishing,
chiefly the work of the dhikr, which brings the heart to the state
of perfect mirror. In the beginning these lights are manifested
as ephemeral flashes. The more perfect the transparency (the
“specularity”) of the mirror, the more they grow, the longer
they last, the more diverse they become, until they manifest the
form of heavenly entities. As a general rule also, the source
where these Lights take shape is the spiritual entity of the mys¬
tic, his ruhaniyat, the very same, as we have seen (supra II, 1), in
SohravardI and the Hermetists under the name of Perfect Na¬
ture, the philosopher’s “Angel.” But besides this we have to
take into consideration that every spiritual state, every func¬
tion, every feeling, every act, has its spiritual entity, its “Angel”
which manifests itself in the light proper to it. Prophecy
(noboxvwat), Initiation (walayat), the spirits of the Initiates (Aza¬
liya), the great shaykhs of Sufism, the Qoran, the profession of
Islam, the fidelity of faith (iman), 112 even every form of dhikr,
every form of divine office and worship, each one of these
realities is expressed in a light proper to it.

In the description given by our author of the suprasensory
phenomena of pure light, what we note in short is the follow¬
ing: brief flashes and flames most often originate from the
liturgical acts (prayer, ritual ablution, etc.). A longer and bright¬
er light is that from the Qoran or from the dhikr. There may be
visualization of the well-known verse from the chapter Light
(24:35): “The image of His light is that of a Niche wherein
there is a lamp, the lamp is in a case of glass . . . “ Here the

104

§2. The Doctrine of Pnotisms according to Najm Razi

“Niche of lights” manifests a light of the prophecy or else of the
initiatic quality of the shaykh. Tapers, lamps and live embers
manifest the different forms of dhikr or else are an effect of the
light of gnosis. All the forms of stars which are shown in the
Skies of the heart (asman-e del) are, as in Najm Kobra, lights
manifesting the Angel; i.e., the esoteric aspect of the astronom¬
ical Sky that is its homologue (batin-e falak). According to the
heart’s degree of purity, the star may be seen without its Sky or
else with its Sky; in the latter case, the Sky is the “subtle astral
mass” of the heart, whereas the star is the light of the Spirit.
The Constellated figures manifest the Animae coelestes. Sun and
moon may appear in various positions, each of which has its
meaning. The full moon in the Sky of the heart manifests the
effects of the initiation corresponding to the degree of lunar
initiation (walayat-e qamariya)', the sun manifests the effects of
the solar or total initiation ( w. kolliya). Several suns together are
a manifestation of the perfect Initiates ( Awliya-e kolll). Sun and
moon contemplated together are the joint manifestation of the
form of the shaykh and the form of the absolute initiator. 113
Sun, moon and stars may appear as though immersed either in
the sea or in running water or on the contrary in motionless
water, sometimes in a well. All the mystics recognize there the
lights of their “spiritual entity.” These immersions in a trans¬
parent element proclaim the extreme purity of the heart, the
state of the “pacified soul,” which, at the boundary, will allow
the rays of the divine Lights to pierce through all the veils. This
is the meaning of the verse in the sura of the Star: “The heart
does not belie what it has seen (53:11),” the mystical sense
which sanctions the Prophet’s visions (“My heart has seen my
Lord in the most beautiful of forms”) and the theophanies
vouchsafed to Abraham and Moses.

Najm RazT knows it: it may be asked whether all these
theophanies tak e place in the inner, esoteric world or rather in
the outer, exoteric world? His answer is that anyone who asks
this kind of question remains far from the real situation where
the two worlds meet and coincide. In one case it may be that the
suprasensory perception is awakened and stimulated by a sen¬
sory perception; between the sensory ( hissi ) and the suprasen¬
sory (ghaybl ), the exoteric ( zahir ) and the esoteric ( batin ), there is
synchronism and symbolism; these are even the foundation

105

V. The Black Light

and criterion of visionary apperception. In another instance, a
direct perception of the suprasensory by the organ of the heart
may come about without a sensory organ or physical support
(see supra IV, 1, aura and auric perception). In either case this
organ of the heart (with the spiritual energy of the Imaginatrix,
effects a transmutation of the sensory so that it is perceived “in
Hurqalya,” on the plane of the mundus imaginalis, the imaginal
world wherein “what is corporeal becomes spirit and what is
spiritual assumes a body” (“our method is that of alchemy,’’said
Najm Kobra). 114 This is the meaning derived by spiritual her¬
meneutics from the verse on the Light: “God is the light of the
Heavens and of the Earth” (24:35), for, in reality and in the
true sense, what makes manifest (that is, light) and that which is
manifested (mazhar , the theophanic form), what sees and what is
seen are the divine Being himself. “When the meaning of Abra¬
ham’s exclamation: This is my Lord has been mystically under¬
stood, then sensory and suprasensory, exoteric and esoteric,
apparent and hidden, will be one and the same thing.”

SemnanI perceives in another verse of the Qoran (41:53)
the very principle of the inward movement whereby every
outer datum becomes an event pertaining to the soul, bringing
historical, physical time ( zaman afaqi) back to inner, psychic
time ( zaman anfosi). This is the final end toward which all mystic
ways converge; it is the spiritual abode where the gaze of the
one who contemplates the beauty of the Witness of contempla¬
tion (shahid) in the mirror of the inner eye, the eye of the heart,
is none other than the gaze of the Witness: “I am the mirror of
thy face; through thine own eyes I look upon thy counte¬
nance.” The Contemplated is the Contemplator and vice
versa; 115 we have already attempted here to approach the se¬
cret of this mystical reciprocity, a paradox which cannot be bet¬
ter expressed than in terms of light. Najm RazI pursues the
attempt to the limit:

If the light rises in the Sky of the heart taking the form of one
or of several light-giving moons, the two eyes are closed to this
world and to the other. If this light rises and, in the utterly pure
inner man attains the brightness of the sun or of many suns, the
mystic is no longer aware of this world nor of the other, he sees
only his own Lord under the veil of the Spirit; then his heart is
nothing but light, his subtle body is light, his material covering is

106

§2. The Doctrine of Photisms according to Najm Ran

light, his hearing, his sight, his hand, his exterior, his interior are
nothing but light, his mouth and his tongue also.

The photisms of pure light thus described correspond to
the state of the heart which is that of the “pacified soul.” The
colored photisms which Najm RazI proceeds to describe rise
step by step from the moment when the. spiritual individuality
is triumphantly freed from the lower ego ( ammaragi ) and, on
reaching the degree of consciousness (lawwamagi), makes its
way to the degree of the pacified soul, the threshold of the
beyond (supra IV, 3). Then the mystic enters the first valley,
following an itinerary the successive stages of which are
marked by the visualization of colored lights, leading him to
the seventh valley, the valley of “black light.” But here we
should note certain features through which the originality of
each of the Iranian Sufi masters becomes apparent (paying no
heed to the immutable rigidity of a certain “tradition” put to¬
gether in our day in the West). Whereas SemnanI connects the
colored lights to the seven centers or organs of subtle physiol¬
ogy ( latifa ), Najm RazI relates them simply to spiritual states.
He outlines, however, in connection with the “unveilings of the
suprasensory,” a “physiology” of the subtle organs, of which in
his theory there are only five. What is more, the colored lights
are differently graded and in a quite different order in the
respective works of these two masters.

According to the Najm RazI the colors visualized by the su¬
prasensory senses are graded in the following order: at the
first stage, the light visualized is white light ; it is the sign of Islam.
At the second stage, yellow light ; this is the sign of the fidelity of
faith (iman). At the third stage, the light is dark blue (kabud ); it is
the sign of benevolence (ihsan). At the fourth stage, the light is
green; this is the sign of tranquility of the soul (the pacified soul,
motma'yanna). Perception of the green light thus agrees as to its
meaning, if not as to its place in the order of succession, with
the perception of the green light in Najm Kobra’s treatise (re¬
garding Semnanl’s, see infra VI, 1). At the fifth stage, azure blue
light; this is the sign of firm assurance ( iqan ). At the sixth stage,
red light; the sign of mystical gnosis, “theosophical” knowledge
(in Najm Kobra, it is the color of the Nous, or active Intelli¬
gence). At the seventh stage, black light ( nur-e siyah); the sign of
passionate, ecstatic love.

107

V. The Black Light

The first six steps thus correspond to the lights which Najm
Razi describes as lights of the attribute of Beauty, theophanic
lights which illuminate. The “black light” is that of the attribute
of Majesty which sets the mystic’s being on fire; it is not con¬
templated; it attacks, invades, annihilates, then annihilates an¬
nihilation. It shatters the “supreme theurgy” ( talasm-e a’zam),
that is, the apparatus of the human organism; this term inci¬
dentally occurs also in Sohravardf s vocabulary. Their conjunc¬
tion is however essential (see WasitT’s text cited above); thus it is
inaccessible Majesty which is revealed in alluring Beauty and
Beauty which is revealed Majesty. But this revelation presup¬
poses a form, a receptable ( mazhar ) to receive it. Najm Razi af¬
firms that there is light and darkness wherever you look, and
that this is why the Qoran (in reference to light and darkness)
speaks not of a creation or created state (hhalqiyat), but of a
primordial establishment (ja’liyat , conditioning the very coming
into existence of being). Light and darkness are not things
alongside other things, but are categories of things. This pre¬
liminary orientation will then save us from confusing the divine
Night, the abscondity of the Essence which causes light to be
revealed, and the darkness here below, the demonic darkness
which holds the light captive and does not allow it to escape.
This darkness is not what makes the light manifest; it releases it
when forced to do so. But if all light so released is visible as
light, if therefore the light calls for a “matter,” a receptacle to
condition this visibility, then the matter in question is not that
of the lower darkness. Here the importance is felt (as we have
been reminded many times) of the world of subtle matter, mun-
dus imaginalis (’alam al-mithal), in the cosmology professed by all
our Spiritual seekers. “Subtle matter” is the esoteric Heavens of
the heart, its “astral mass” and so forth. The suprasensory
phenomena of colored lights are produced by this “matter” be¬
cause it is the act itself of light, not the antagonist of light. Di¬
vine Night (Deus absconditus) , as the source and origin of all
light {Deus revelatus), is not a compound of the demonic and the
divine. But this divine light, once revealed, may well fall into
captivity in Ahrimanian darkness. This drama is admirably de¬
scribed by the Manichean cosmogony, as an ever-present
drama with inexhaustible variants, up to and including confu¬
sion of the social with the divine.

108

§2. The Doctrine of Photisms according to Najrn Razi

As to the theory of the subtle organs according to Najm Razi,
while differing from Semnani’s theory, it nevertheless opens
the way to the latter. The theory proceeds essentially from the
tradition (hadlth) which states: “God has 70,000 veils of light
and of darkness; if he removed them the brilliance of his Face
would burn up all that met his look.” These veils are the totality
of all the sensory and suprasensory universes ( molk and malakut,
shahadat and ghaybat). The figure which determines the
number qualitatively, following the above tradition, is 70,000.
But there are variants; some traditions mention 18,000 worlds,
others 360,000 worlds. 116 Now, all these worlds are existent in
the inner world of man, in his subtle or esoteric (nahan - batin)
being, which includes as many “eyes” as there are worlds;
through these “eyes” man perceives respectively each of these
worlds, by the living experience of the spiritual state in which
each of these worlds becomes manifest in him. Thus he pos¬
sesses 70,000 “eyes”, among which are the five outer senses
attached to the bodily realities of sensory matter, the five inner
senses, the five energies of organic physiology; but these, one
suspects already, are only a small part of the energies of the
whole man to whom “suprasensory senses” are available. And
so the term mokashafat, “unveilings,” is never used by Sufis (as
Najm Razi points out) in reference to objects of a perception
deriving from the three categories of faculties just enumerated,
but only in reference to suprasensory realities. It thus implies
eo ipso the idea of unveilings of suprasensory things that come
about in the case of the sahib-e kashf, a term which again cannot
be better translated than by the word “clairvoyant.”

When the “clairvoyant” commits himself to the tariqat or
mystical journey, following the rules of spiritual warfare under
the direction of the master of initiation ( wali ) and the shaykh,
he passes in succession through all these veils; at each station
(maqam) an inner eye opens in him correspondingly, and he
perceives all the modes of being or spiritual states relating to
that station. This perception is effected by the suprasensory
faculties or organs of the subtle physiology of the “clairvoyant,”
which in each generation are imparted to a small group of hu¬
mans. While SemnanI enumerates seven subtle organs or latifa,
Najm Razi takes them as five only: the intellect, the heart, the
spirit, the superconsciousness ( sirr ), and the arcanum or trans-

109

V. The Black Light

consciousness ( khaft ). Each of these suprasensory faculties per¬
ceives its own world; this is why we hear of an unveiling to the
intellect ( kashf-e ’aqfi\ the majority of philosophers have not
gone beyond that); an unveiling to the heart ( mokashafat-e del,
visions of the various colored lights); unveilings to the spirit (m.
ruhi, assumptions to heaven, visions of angels, perception of
past and future in their permanent state); finally, unveiling to
the superconsciousness and to the arcanum. There “the time
and space of the beyond” are revealed; what was seen from this
side is seen from the other side. And all these organs are in¬
termediate in regard to the others, each transmitting to the
next what has been granted and unveiled to itself, and the next
receives this in the form proper to itself; the further the mystic
progresses on the seven steps of the heart by conforming his
being to the moribus divinis (takhalloq bi-akhlaq Allah), the more
these unveilings multiply for him.

3. Black Light in the “Rose Garden of Mystery”
(1317)

The long Persian poem bearing the title of Golshan-e Raz (the
Rose Garden of Mystery), comprising about 1500 couplets, is
the work of Mahmud Shabestari. 117 This work has been read
closely and continuously in Iran until now, but its extreme con¬
ciseness (in it the author answers many questions gathered by
one of his friends concerning the high doctrines of Sufism) has
motivated the writing of any number of commentaries. Among
these the most complete and also the most frequently studied
in Iran until today is that of Shamsoddin Lahljl; its scope and
content make it a veritable compendium of Sufism. 118

A feature reported in the biography of Lahljl demonstrates
to what point the doctrine of colored photisms, showing the
mystic his degree of progress on the spiritual way, is reflected
in the detail of his daily life; it suggests to him in fact that he
can wear garments whose colors correspond to those of the
lights successively characterizing his spiritual state; the experi¬
ence is thus translated practically into the symbols of a personal
liturgy, coinciding with the very current of life. QazI Nurollah
Shoshtari 119 relates that during the time when Shah Esmall
(Ismael) 120 established his power in the province of Fars (Per-

110

§3. Black Light in the “Rose Garden of Mystery”

sis) and Shiraz, the sovereign wished to visit the shaykh. When
he met him, he asked: “Why have you chosen always to wear
black clothing?” “In mourning for the Imam Hosayn,” an¬
swered the shaykh. But the king remarked, “It has been estab¬
lished that only ten days each year should be devoted to
mourning the holy Imam.” “No,” replied the shaykh, “that is a
human error. In reality the mourning for the holy Imam is a
permanent mourning; it will not end until the dawn of the Res¬
urrection.”

Obviously one can hear in this answer testimony to the fer¬
vor of a Shi’ite, at the heart of whose meditations remains the
drama of Karbala, just as the drama of Christ’s Passion is at the
heart of Christian piety. But another intention can also be seen
in the wearing of this black clothing, an intention correspond¬
ing precisely to the practice by certain groups in Sufism of
wearing clothing of the same color as that of the light con¬
templated in the mystic station they had attained. In this way a
“chromatic harmony” is established between the esoteric and
the exoteric, the hidden and the apparent. Thus in the first
stages, blue ( kabud ) clothing was worn. 121 At the highest stage
black clothing would have corresponded to the “black light.” Is
this then indeed the meaning which we find in this personal
practice of Lahljl, which so astonished Shah Esma’il? A poem
composed by one of his own disciples in praise of the shaykh,
seems indeed to confirm this. 122

In any case, the pages where Lahljl unfolds the theme of
the “black light” in commenting on Mahmud Shabestari’s poem
are of capital importance when it comes to making a clear dis¬
tinction between the divine Night and the Ahrimanian Dark¬
ness. 123 The black light is the light of the pure Essence in its
ipseity, in its abscondity; the ability to perceive it depends on a
spiritual state described as“reabsorption in God” (fana fTlldh),
the state in which Semnani perceives the danger of a supreme
ordeal from which, according to him, the mystic rises again on
the threshold of a visio smaragdina, the green light then being
raised to the rank of the highest light of the Mystery. Compara¬
tive study of these visions is of exceptional interest; it would call
for ample meditation and can only be outlined here.

While following the exact words of the poet, Lahijfs com¬
mentary as it develops affords a glimpse of the precise lines of

111

V. The Black Light

its development as a series of steps. Three moments become
distinct; namely, an effort to approach the idea of the black
light from all sides, then to describe the superconsciousness it
postulates, an unknowingness which, as such, is knowing; lastly
this “luminous Night” is identified with the state of mystical
poverty in the true sense, the very sense in which the Sufi is
described as “poor in spirit” ( darwlsh , dervish, supra III, 3).

To encompass the idea of black light is all the more difficult
in that it bursts forth in a twofold way. It irrupts in the presence
of things; it means a particular way of seeing them, which pro¬
vides the author with the theme of the black Face of beings
(siyah-ru’i). And it irrupts in the absence of things, when the
intelligence, turning away from what is manifested, endeavors
to understand Who is manifested and revealed. This is the
theme of pure Essence, of divine Ipseity as absolute Subject,
whose inaccessibility the author suggests by speaking of exces¬
sive proximity and bedazzlement. This is where the theme of
mystical poverty brings a denouement to a dialectically inex¬
tricable situation: the coexistence of the absolute Subject and
the individual subjects, of the One and the Many.

As for the first theme, there is no better means of placing it
than by referring to Shaykh LahijI’s own testimony, since on
many occasions he illustrates his commentary with facts drawn
from his personal experience. Here is his account of a vision:

I saw myself [writes the Shaykh] present in a world of light.
Mountains and deserts were iridescent with lights of all colors:
red, yellow, white, blue. I was experiencing a consuming nostalgia
for them; I was as though stricken with madness and snatched out
of myself by the violence of the intimate emotion and feeling of
the presence. Suddenly I saw that the black light was invading the
entire universe. Heaven and earth and everything that was there
had wholly become black light and, behold, I was totally absorbed
in this light, losing consciousness. Then I came back to myself.

The recital of this vision at once suggests a comparison with
one of the great ecstatic confessions of Mir Damad; there is
something in common between the black light swallowing up
the universe and Mir Damad’s perception of the “great occult
clamor of beings,” the “silent clamor of their metaphysical dis¬
tress.” 124 The black light reveals the very secret of being, which
can only be, as made-to-be \ all beings have a twofold face, a face of

112

§3. Black Light in the “Rose Garden of Mystery”

light and a black face. The luminous face, the face of day, is the
only one that, without understanding it, the common run of
men perceive, the apparent evidence of their act of existing.
Their black face, the one the mystic perceives, is their poverty:
they have nothing with which to be, they cannot be sufficient
unto themselves in order to be what they have to be, it is the
inessence of their essence. The totality of their being is their day¬
light face and their night face; their daylight face is the making
of essence out of their inessence by the absolute Subject. This is
the mystical meaning of the verse in the Qoran: “Everything
perishes except His Face” (28:88), that is, except the face of light
of that thing.

Now what those two faces show the visionary is the twofold
dimension of being precisely analyzed in Avicenna’s ontology
as the dimension of necessary being and the dimension of “con¬
tingent” being. In fact, there is strictly speaking no “con¬
tingency.” There is actualized possibility, and every possibility
to be actualized necessarily exists from the very fact that its
perfect cause, its sufficient reason, is given. It could not not be.
However, this dimension of possibility remains latent in the
heart itself of the actualized possibility, in the sense that its di¬
mension of necessary being, its capacity to be, comes to it from
its connection with the Source from which it emanates, whereas
its dimension of possibility, that is to say, its metaphysical indi¬
gence, is perceived as soon as it regards itself—fictitiously, to be
sure, and in a hypothetical way—as separated from the Princi¬
ple whence its necessary being derives. As one knows, the en¬
tire Avicennan theory of the procession of the cherubinic Intel¬
ligences, the emanators of the Heavens and of the Earth, is
based on acts of contemplation directed to these “dimensions”
of intelligibility. The visionary irruption of this twofold
dimension—positive and negative—is the vision of the black
light.

Even from the primordial origin of the pleroma, from the
eternal instant of the arising of the first of the Intelligences, the
first of the Kerobin, Angel-Logos, the twofold dimension of
every existentialized being is already manifested: its face of
light and its “black face.” This is what led certain Iranian Av-
icennans 125 to compare the Avicennan cosmology with the Zer-
vanist cosmology of ancient Iran. No doubt there is a dia-

113

V. The Black Light

grammatic homology as regards the form but, as we have al¬
ready noted elsewhere, this would be correct only if referred to
“exorcised,” “de-satanized” Zeruanism. For the “black face” that
shows itself from the first act of being is not Ahrimanian dark¬
ness, but the secret of the creatural condition that has its origin
“in the darkness at the approaches to the pole," that is, in the
very mystery of the setting up of creation. The Ahrimanian
darkness is in the “extreme Occident,” the region of mate¬
rialized matter. That is why Lahijl and the mystic on whom he
is commenting repeat, exactly as Avicenna said in the recital of
Hayy ibn Yaqzan, that in “this darkness at the approaches to
the pole” is to be found the Water of Life. To find this wellspring
demands the penetration of the meaning of the twofold face
of things, and to understand that is to understand at the same
time the mystical implications of Avicenna’s philosophy,
attested by the perspectives it opened up to Iranian spirituals.
Here alas! is where the impoverished rationalism of modern
interpreters of Avicenna in the West reveals its impotence and
incurable blindness. As Lahijl says, one does not learn to find
the Water of Life in the Darkness simply by hearsay and by
reading books.

The Avicennan analysis of the twofold dimension of estab¬
lished being bore fruit until the time of the renaissance of phi¬
losophy in Iran in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is
present in the metaphysics of light elaborated by SohravardI in
terms of a metaphysics of essence, as well as in the work of his
great interpreter, Molla Sadra Shiraz! (died 1640), who gave
the existential version of the “oriental theosophy.” It is tra¬
ditionally repeated, from Molla Sadra down to Shaykh Ahmad
Ahsa’I, the founder of the Shaykhite school in Shl’ism, that the
act of existing is the dimension of light of beings, whereas their
quiddity is their dimension of darkness. And this cannot be
understood without going back to the Avicennan origins. The
metaphysical indigence of beings analyzed in Avicennan ontol¬
ogy is translated and experienced by Lahijl as a feeling of au¬
thentic mystical poverty. By experiencing this, the visionary
contemplates the mysterious black Light that permeates the en¬
tire universe; it is certainly not the Ahrimanian inversion and
subversion that transports him in ecstasy, but the Presence
whose suprabeing consists in causing-to-be and which for that

114

§3. Black Light in the “Rose Garden of Mystery”

reason can never itself be caused-to-be , nor seen as being—
forever invisible while causing to see in its permanent actuation
of each act of being.

That is why there is a profound connection between the
meaning of the black Light perceived in the presence of things
when they reveal to the visionary their twofold face, and its
meaning as he perceives it when things absent themselves from
him and he turns toward the Principle. These two themes are
so deeply linked together that the second appears as the basis
of the first. It is in the second sense that Lahlji declares that
black is the color of the pure divine Ipseity in Itself, in the same
way that to Najm RazI this color applied only to the attributes
of inaccessible Majesty, to the Deus absconditus. When he com¬
ments on this verse of the Rose Garden of Mystery, “The black
color, if you follow me, is light of pure Ipseity; within this
Darkness is the Water of Life” (v. 123)—what does Lahlji mean
in this case by speaking of a bedazzlement and a blindness
whose cause is certainly not extreme distance but too great a
proximity? The eye of inner vision, the “suprasensory senses”
themselves, are darkened thereby.

To understand the shaykh’s intention and his terminology,
let us first recall the implications of Avicenna’s ontology: the
metaphysical indigence of beings, their inessence, implying that
they would have nothing with which to be if necessary Being
did not compensate for their lack. We referred just now to the
existential version of the Avicenne-Sohravardian metaphysics
in Molla Sadra: Sadra gives the determinant metaphysical pre¬
cedence to the act of existing, not to quiddity or essence. It can
be said that Molla Sadra of Shiraz, here as elsewhere, reveals
his own formation as an Avicennan strongly imbued with the
theosophy of Sohravardi and with that of Ibn 'Arabl. But well
before him there were Spirituals in Iran who had read both Av¬
icenna and Ibn ’Arab!. Lahlji was one of them, and no doubt
he was able to give the lie to misinterpretations inflicted in the
West on the thought of his two masters, so different, inciden¬
tally, from each other. The famous expression wahdat al-wojud
does not signify an “existential monism” (it has no connection
either with Hegel or with Haeckel), but refers to the tran¬
scendental unity of being. The act of being does not take on
different meanings; it remains unique, while multiplying itself

115

V. The Black Light

in the actualities of the beings that it causes to be; an uncon¬
ditioned Subject which is never itself caused-to-be. So this too-
closeness spoken of by Lahiji, the bedazzlement of black Light,
is understood when every act of being or every act of light is
related to its Principle.

In other words, light cannot be seen, precisely because it is
what causes seeing. We do not see light, we see only its recepta¬
cles. That is why lights visible on suprasensory planes necessi¬
tate the idea of pure colors, as previously outlined, which are
actualized eo ipso by their act of light as receptacles that are the
“matter” of pure light, and not needing to fall into a matter
foreign to their act of light. This being so, it is impossible to
withdraw enough to see the light which is the cause-of-seeing,
since in every act of seeing it is already there. This is the prox¬
imity that the mystic speaks of when he expresses his amaze¬
ment “that you bring yourself so near to me that I come to
think that you are me” (supra IV, 9). We can neither see light when
there is nothing to receive it, nor where it is swallowed up. By
trying to place ourselves in front of the cause-of-seeing, which itself
can but remain invisible, we find ourselves in front of Darkness
(and that is “the Darkness at the approaches to the pole”), for we
cannot take as an object of knowledge precisely what enables us to
know each object, what enables any object to exist as such. That is
why Lahiji speaks of a proximity that dazzles. On the other hand,
the demonic shadow is not the light, itself invisible, which causes
seeing, but is the Darkness that prevents seeing, as the darkness of
the subconscious prevents seeing. The black light, on the other
hand, is that which cannot itself be seen, because it is the cause of
seeing; it cannot be object, since it is absolute Subject. It dazzles, as
the light of superconsciousness dazzles. Therefore it is said in the
Rose Garden of Mystery : “Renounce seeing, for here it is not a
question of seeing.” Only a knowledge which is a theophanic
experience can be knowledge of the divine Being. But in relation
to the divine Ipseity, this knowledge is a not-knowing, because
knowledge presupposes a subject and an object, the seer and the
seen, whereas divine Ipseity, black light, excludes this correlation.
To transfnute this unknowingness into knowledge would be to
recognize who the true subject of knowledge is, in a supreme act of
metaphysical renunciation, where Lahiji testifies to his sense of
the poverty of the dervish and to the fruit of his own meditation on
Ibn ’Arab!.

116

§3. Black Light in the “Rose Garden of Mystery”

Here one will recall certain visionary apperceptions of
Najm Kobra: now the red sun standing out on a black back¬
ground, now the constellations turning red against the back¬
ground of an emerald Sky, dazzling to human vision. We have
learned from him that this red sun and these reddening orbs
announce the presence of the Angel-Logos or of one of the
angelic Intelligences. As in Hermes’ vision, angelophany is as¬
sociated with the symbol of the “midnight sun,” of luminous
Night, because the first Intelligence, the Angel-Logos, is the
initial and primordial theophany of the Deus absconditus. The
profound meaning of an episode in the mi’raj of the Prophet
then emerges. The Angel Gabriel, as the angel of Revelation
identified by all the Ishraqtyun with the angel of Knowledge,
leads the prophet as far as the Lotus of the limit. He cannot him¬
self go further, for he would be consumed by fire. Now, it is
unthinkable that his theophanic being should be consumed
and annihilated; that would mean self-destruction of the divine
revelation. As Lahijl explains, the Angel does not have to cross
this fana fi'llah, the test of reabsorption into God. The
theophanic form must persist in order to be met with again at
the emergence from the supreme test, the sun becoming red
against a black sky, as in Najm Kobra’s vision. The ordeal of
this penetration, comprising an experience of death and an¬
nihilation, is for man alone to attempt, and marks his hour of
greatest peril. Either he will be swallowed up in dementia or he
will rise again from it, initiated in the meaning of theophanies
and revelations. This resurgence is later translated by Semnani
as an exaltation from black light to green light. By passing thus
through the annihilation of annihilation, by passing to the
“Gabriel of your being,” the recognition of the Guide is authen¬
ticated, of the “witness in Heaven,” the reddening sun against
the background of divine Darkness. For this recognition im¬
plies recognition of the Unknowable, which is to say metaphys¬
ical renunciation and mystical poverty.

The poet of the/?ose Garden of Mystery asks: “What common
measure is there between the Terrestrial and the divine worlds,
that being unable to find knowledge should already of itself be
knowledge?” (v. 125) And Lahijl comments:

The perfection of contingent being is to regress to its basic
negativity, and to come to know through its own unknowingness.

117

V. The Black Light

It means to know with the certainty of experience that the sum-
mum of knowledge is unknowingness, for here there is infinite
disproportion. This mystical station is that of bedazzlement, of
immersion of the object in the subject. It is the revelation of the
non-being of that which has never been, and of the perennity of
that which has never not been. ... In reality, there is no knowledge
of God by another than God, for another than God is not. The ulti¬
mate end towards which the pilgrims of the divine Way proceed,
is to arrive at the mystical station where they discover that the
actions, attributes and ipseity of things are effaced and reab¬
sorbed in the theophanic ray of light, and where they are essen-
cified by the very fact of their essential destitution, which is the
stage of absorption in God ifana JTllah), where being is returned
to being, non-being to non-being, in conformity with the verse of
the Book: “God commands you to render that which is held in
trust to whom it belongs” (4:61).

But the one to whom it belongs will be found only on condi¬
tion that the seventh valley is reached.

The seventh is the valley of mystical poverty and of fana.
After that you can go no further. It has been said that mystical
poverty is the wearing of black raiment 126 in the two universes.
This saying expresses the fact that the mystic is so totally absorbed
in God that he no longer has any existence of his own, neither
inwardly nor outwardly in this world and beyond; he returns to
his original essential poverty, and that is poverty in the true sense.
It is in this sense, when the state of poverty has become total, that
a mystic can say that he is God, for that mystical station is where
he gives divine Ipseity absolute meaning (it is absolved of all rela-
tivation) ... So long as the mystic has not reached his own negativ¬
ity, which is complete reabsorption, he has not reached the positiv¬
ity of essencification by absolute being, which is superexistence
through God. To be non-being by one’s own efforts is the very same
as to be through God. Absolute non-being is manifested only in and
through absolute being. For any other than Perfect Man access to
this degree is difficult, for Perfect Man is the most perfect of beings
and the very cause of the coming into existence of the world.

Thus the metaphysical indigence of the being is transfigured
into mystical poverty, absolute liberation from this indigence.

“How shall I find words to describe such a subtle situation?
Luminous Night, dark Middayl" (v. 125), cries the poet further on
in the Rose Garden of Mystery. His commentator knows what he
means: for one who has experienced this mystical state an allu¬
sion is enough, whereas anyone else will be able to understand
only to the degree of his proximity to it. And Lahlj! is fasci-

118

§3. Black Light in the “Rose Garden of Mystery”

nated by this luminous Night ( shab-e roshan) which is dark Mid¬
day, a mystical aurora borealis in which we ourselves recognize
one of these “symbols of the north” which from the beginning
have oriented our search toward an Orient not to be found in
the East of our geographic maps. It is indeed Night, since it is
black light and the abscondity of pure Essence, the night of un¬
knowingness and of unknowableness, and yet luminous night,
since it is at the same time the theophany of the absconditum in
the infinite multitude of its theophanic forms (mazahir). Mid¬
day, middle of the Day, to be sure, that is, high noon of multi¬
colored suprasensory light which the mystic perceives through
his organ of light, his inner eye, as theophanies of the divine
Names, attributes and acts; and yet dark Midday, since the mul¬
titude of these theophanic forms are also the 70,000 veils of
light and darkness which hide the pure Essence (see supra
Najm Razi’s reference to this number). The Night of pure Es¬
sence, devoid of color and distinction, is inaccessible to the
knowing subject as knower, since it precedes all his acts of
knowing. The subject thus is rather the organ by which the
Essence knows itself as absolute Subject. And luminous Night
nevertheless, since it is what causes the subject to be by making
itself visible to him, what causes him to see by causing him to be.
Dark Midday of theophanic forms, certainly, because left to
themselves they would be darkness and non-being, and be¬
cause in their very manifestation, “they show themselves as
hidden!”

But it is impossible to divulge the secrets of theophanies
and of divine apparitions, that is to say, the secrets of the shahid.
One who does so incurs only violent reproaches and denials.
“About the forms in which the traces of theophanies are pre¬
sent, 127 certainly I would have much to say, but to be silent is
preferable” (v. 129). The Rose Garden of Mystery thus comes to
an end. All Sufi visionaries agree with him, for he is alluding to
the hypostasis of the divine Lights, whose colors, forms, and
figures specifically correspond to the spiritual state and voca¬
tion of the mystic. This, therefore, is the very secret of the
shahid, the Witness of contemplation, the “witness in Heaven,”
without which the Godhead would remain in the state of
abscondity or abstraction, and there would be no possibility of
that uxority which is the link between lover and beloved, a link

119

V. The Black Light

which is individual and unshareable, and to which every mystic
soul aspires. God has no like ( mithl ), but He has an Image, a
typification (mithal), declares Lahljt. This is the secret of the
Prophet’s vision tirelessly meditated upon by so many Sufis: “I
have seen my God in the most beautiful of forms,” 128 attesting
that the divine Being, without form or modality, is present to
the eye of the heart in a particular form, modality, and indi¬
viduation. For after the experience of the reabsorption of all
the epiphanic forms in the “black light” of pure Essence, comes
the resurgence from the danger of dementia, from metaphysi¬
cal and moral nihilism, and from collective imprisonment in
ready-made forms, the mystic, having understood what it is
that assures the perennity of the determination of apparitional
forms, of any given distinct epiphanic form. This is the authen¬
tic recognition of the figure of the heavenly Witness, the shahid,
whose recurrences we have studied under many and various
names {supra, II and IV, 9). And that is why, in Semnani, it is
beyond the black light, the crossing of which he regards as
perilous in the extreme, that the xrisio smaragdina begins to
open.

120

VT THE SEVEN PROPHETS
v 1 * OF YOUR BEING

1. Alaoddawleh Semnani ( 1336)

His is one of the greatest names in Iranian Sufism. Thanks to
his doctrine, the connection finally becomes clear between
visionary apperceptions, graduated according to their colora¬
tion, and the “physiology of the man of light,” that is, the
physiology of the subtle organs whose growth is nothing other
than the ontogenesis of the “resurrection body.” It is the
spiritual hermeneutics of the holy Book which give it structure:
the spiritual exegesis of the revealed text coincides with the
exodus of the man of light making his way step by step inward
toward the pole, the place of his origin. In other words, the
structure of the seven esoteric meanings of the Qoran exactly
corresponds to the structure of a mystical anthropology or
physiology connecting seven subtle organs or centers (latifa),
each of which is typified by one of the seven great prophets.

Having already dealt at some length elsewhere with this
doctrine of Semnani, we shall limit ourselves here to pointing
out its essential features. 129 We shall recall only that the shaykh
belonged to a noble family of Semnan (a city still flourishing
today, situated some 200 kilometers to the east of Teheran).
Born in 659/1261, he entered the service of Argun, the Mongol
ruler of Iran, as a page, at the age of fifteen; when he was
twenty-four, while camping with Argun’s army in front of

121

VI. The Seven Prophets of Your Being

Qazwln, he underwent a profound spiritual crisis, asked to be
relieved of his duties, and thereafter gave himself up once and
for all to Sufism. He had his Khanqah at Semnan itself, where a
throng of disciples came to him and where his memory is still
alive today; his sanctuary, a beautiful Mongol monument of
delicate construction, was still extant until quite recently.

That the Qoran has a spiritual meaning, or rather several
spiritual meanings, that everything exoteric has an esoteric as¬
pect, and that the mode of being of the true believer depends
on his knowledge of these spiritual meanings, was already af¬
firmed from the earliest days of Islam; it expresses an essential
aspect of Shi’ism, from which Imamology is inseparable; this
affirmation always provoked the disapproval of the orthodox
Sunnite literalists. It is founded amongst other things on the
hadith , or reported saying of the Prophet himself: “the Qoran
has an exoteric and an esoteric meaning [an outer appearance,
a literal sense, and an inner depth, a hidden or spiritual sense].
In its turn, this esoteric meaning itself has an esoteric meaning
[this depth has a depth, in the image of the heavenly Spheres
enfolded the one within the other], and so forth, up to the
seven esoteric meanings [seven depths of depth].”

The foundation and practice of these spiritual or esoteric
hermeneutics are in fact bound up with a metaphysics of light,
whose principal source is the Ishraq of SohravardI, and which
operates similarly in the case of the Ishraqlyun, the Sufis, and
the Ismaelians. In Semnani, the physiology of the organs of
light, the mystical anthropology, further accentuates the con¬
nection. This phenomenon has its counterpart in Latin
Scholasticism, where interest in treatises on optics, the treatises
De perspectiva, was fostered by the wish to ally the science of
light to theology, just as it is allied here to Qoranic hermeneu¬
tics. The implication of the laws of optics in the study of the
scriptures inspired, for example, the exegesis of Bartholomew
of Bologna: “While in optics seven other modes of participa¬
tion of bodies in light are known, Bartholomew finds seven
corresponding modes of participation of the angelic and
human intellects in the divine light.” 130 Asm Palacios had al¬
ready noted the essential affinity between the hermeneutics of
the Islamic Esoterists and that of Roger Bacon. In neither case
is there anything in the least arbitrary in their procedure; all

122

§ 1. A laoddawleh Semnani (1336)

they do, in short, is to apply the laws of optics and perspective
to the spiritual interpretation of the holy books. 131 Likewise, it
is the application of the laws of perspective that makes it possi¬
ble to produce diagrams of the spiritual world (as with the Is-
maelians or in the school of Ibn ’Arabi). An overall compara¬
tive research would, of course, have to include here the proce¬
dures employed in the biblical interpretations of Protestant
theosophists, such as those of the school of Jacob Boehme.

Unfortunately, what Semnani was able successfully to
achieve is only partially expressed in writing. His Tafstr, 132 in¬
troduced by a long prologue in which he expounds his method,
actually only begins from sura 51 . The author’s intention was to
continue the unfinished Tafstr of Najmoddin Razi. He himself
foresaw clearly what a colossal undertaking it would be to ac¬
complish the project—a complete spiritual interpretation of the
seven esoteric meanings of the Qoran. His reader appreciates
the magnitude of the task while observing how the author takes
care to bring out the seven meanings step by step, not in a
theoretical way, but always concerned to relate them to spiritual
experience, that is, to authenticate each meaning by relating it to
the type and degree of spiritual experience which corresponds
to a level of this or that depth (or height). This degree itself
refers to the subtle organ which is its “place,’’just as it does to the
color of the light that heralds it, and is the evidence that the
mystic has arrived at this degree of visionary apperception.

The law of correspondences that governs these hermeneutics,
and which is none other than the law governing all spiritual in¬
terpretation, can be stated as follows: there is homology between
the events taking place in the outer world and the inner events of
the soul; there is homology between what Semnani calls zaman
afaqi, the “time of horizons” or “horizontal time,” namely, the
physical time of historical computation governed by
the movement of the visible stars, and the zaman anfosl, or
psychic time, the time of the world of the soul, of the
pole governing the inner Heavens. This is exactly why each
outer fact can be “led back” (the literal meaning of the word
ta’wll, used technically to describe spiritual exegesis) to the
inner “region” corresponding to it. That region is one of the
series of subtle organs of mystical physiology, each of which,
due to the homology of times, is the typification of a prophet in

123

VI. The Seven Prophets of Your Being

the human microcosm, whose image and role it assumes. Fi¬
nally, each of these regions or organs is marked by a colored
light which the mystic is able to visualize in a state of contem¬
plation and to which he has to learn to be attentive because it
informs him as to his own spiritual state.

The first of these subtle organs (envelopes or centers) is
called the subtle bodily organ (latifa qalabiya; qalab, lit. = the
“mold”). Unlike the physical human body, it is constituted by
direct influx emanating from the Sphere of spheres, the Soul
of the world, without passing through the other Spheres, or of
the planets or of the Elements. It cannot begin to be formed
until after the completion of the physical body: having the
form of a body, but in the subtle state, it is, so to say, the em¬
bryonic mold of the new body, the “acquired” subtle body (jism
moktasab). This is why in mystical physiology it is symbolically
called the Adam of your being.

The second organ is on the level corresponding to the soul
{latifa nafsiya), not the one which is the seat of spiritual pro¬
cesses, but of the vital, organic processes, the anima sensibilis,
vitalis, and which consequently is the center of uncontrolled
desires and evil passions; as such, it is called nafs ammara in the
Qoran, and its role was described to us in Najm Kobra’s trilogy
(supra IV, 3). This means that the level to which it corresponds
on the subtle plane is the testing ground for the spiritual
seeker; in confronting his lower self, he is in the same situation
as Noah facing the hostility of his people. When he has over¬
come it, this subtle organ is called the Noah of your being.

The third subtle organ is that of the heart ( latifa qalbiya) in
which the embryo of mystical progeny is formed, as a pearl is
formed in a shell. This pearl or offspring is none other than
the subtle organ which will be the True Ego, the real, personal
individuality ( latifa ana'iya). The allusion to this spiritual Ego,
who will be the child conceived in the mystic’s heart, im¬
mediately makes it clear to us why this subtle center of the
heart is the Abraham of your being.

The fourth subtle organ is related to the center technically
designated by the term sirr (latifa sirriya), the “secret” or
threshold of superconsciousness. It is the place and organ of
intimate conversation, secret communication, “confidential
psalm” (monajat): it is the Moses of your being.

124

§i. Alaoddawleh Semnanl(1336)

The fifth subtle organ is the Spirit ( ruh , latlfa ruhiya); be¬
cause of its noble rank, it is rightfully the divine viceregent: it is
the David of your being.

The sixth subtle organ is related to the center best de¬
scribed by the Latin term arcanum ( khaft, latifa khafiya). Help
and inspiration from the Holy Ghost are received by means of
this organ; in the hierarchy of spiritual states it is the sign of
access to the state of nabl , prophet. It is the Jesus of your being-, it
is he who proclaims the Name to all the other subtle centers
and to the “people” in these faculties, because he is their Head
and the Name he proclaims is the seal of your being, just as in
the Qoran (3:6) it is said that Jesus, as the prophet before the
last of the prophets of our cycle, was the herald of the last pro¬
phet, i.e., of the advent of the Paraclete. 133

The seventh and last subtle organ is related to the divine
center of your being, to the eternal seal of your person ( latifa
haqqiya). It is the Mohammad of your being. This subtle divine
center conceals the “rare Mohammadan pearl,” that is to say,
the subtle organ which is the True Ego, and whose embryo be¬
gins to be formed in the subtle center of the heart, the Abraham
of your being. Every passage in the Qoran which defines the re¬
lationship of Mohammad with Abraham then offers us an ad¬
mirable example of the inward movement actualized by Sem-
nani’s hermeneutics, the transition from “horizontal time” to
the “time of the soul.” It ends by actualizing, in the person of
the human microcosm, the truth of the meaning according to
which the religion of Mohammad originates in the religion of
Abraham, for “Abraham was neither Jew nor Christian, but a
pure believer (hanif), a Moslem (3:60),” which is to say that the
“Abraham of your being” is led through the subtle centers of
higher consciousness and of the arcanum (the Moses and the
Jesus of your being) until he reaches your true Ego, his
spiritual progeny.

Thus the growth of the subtle organism, the physiology of
the man of light, progresses through the seven latifa, each of
which is one of the seven prophets of your being : the cycle of birth
and initiatic growth is homologous to the cycle of prophecy.
The mystic is aware of this growth thanks to the apperception
of colored lights which characterize each of the suprasensory
organs or centers, to the observation of which Semnanl gave so

125

VI. The Seven Prophets of Your Being

much attention. These lights are the tenuous veils enveloping
each of the latifa\ their coloring reveals to the mystic which
stage of his growth or journey he has reached. The stage of the
subtle body at the level of its birth, still very close to the physical
organism (the “Adam of your being”), is simply darkness, a
blackness sometimes turning to smoke-grey; the stage of the
vital soul (Noah) is blue in color; that of the heart (Abraham) is
red,', that of the superconscious (Moses) is white', that of the
Spirit (David) is yellow, that of the arcanum (Jesus) is luminous
black (aswad nurani ); this is the “black light,” the luminous Night
about which we were informed by Najm RazI as well as by the
Rose Garden of Mystery and its commentator; lastly the stage of
the divine center (Mohammad) is brilliant green (the splendor
of the Emerald Rock, supra III, 1 and IV, 6) for “the color
green is the most appropriate to the secret of the mystery of
Mysteries (or the suprasensory uniting all the suprasensories).”

We immediately notice three things: first of all that the col¬
ored lights, in Semnanfs account, differ in two ways from the
account in Najm Razfs treatise (supra V, 2): their order of se¬
quence is different and their term of reference. Unfortunately,
we cannot go into detail here. Second, an explicit distinction is
made between the darkness of the black thing (the black object
which absorbs the colors, holds the “spark of light” captive) and
the luminous black, i.e., the black light, luminous Night, dark Mid¬
day, on which as we have seen, Lahijidwells at length in his Com¬
mentary on Shabestari’sjRasc Garden. Somewhere between the two
we glimpsed the situation of the world of colors in the pure state
{supra V, 1). Lastly, unlike the authorsjust recalled, Semnanihas it
that the final mystical station is marked, not by black light but by
green light. This corresponds no doubt to a difference in the way
each of these depths is innerly attained, oriented.

The rule applying to this movement inward, the turning
away from the “world of horizons” toward the “world of souls”
is pointed out by Semnan! as clearly as one could wish.

Each time you hear in the Book words addressed to Adam,
listen to them through the organ of the subtle body. . . . Meditate
on that with which they symbolize, and be very sure that the
esoteric aspect of the passage relates to you, just as the exoteric
aspect relates to Adam in that it concerns the horizons. . . . Only
then will you be able to apply the teaching of the divine Word to

126

§/. Alaoddawleh Semnanl(1336)

yourself and to cull it as you would a branch laden with freshly
opened flowers.

And he continues in the same strain, from prophet to prophet.

The application of this rule governing the movement in¬
ward will itself show us why and how, from the point of view of
the Islamic Sufi Semnanl, to pass through the black light
typified by the “Jesus of your being” is the sign of a decisive,
not to say dramatic step, but is not the ultimate stage of growth.
The complete fulfillment of personal initiation comes to pass
only when there is access to the seventh latifa, the one en¬
veloped in “the most beautiful color of all”—emerald splendor.
In fact, Semnanl views the level of the subtle organ typified as
the “Jesus of your being” as being exactly the perilous distract¬
ing stage whereat Christians in general and certain Sufis in
Islam have been misled. It is worth our while to listen atten¬
tively to this evaluation of Christianity as formulated by a Sufi,
for it differs profoundly from the polemics uttered by the offi-
cal heresy-hunting apologists who deny validity to all mystical
feeling. Semnanfs critique is made in the name of spiritual ex¬
perience; everything takes place as though this Sufi Master’s
aim were to perfect the Christian ta’wil, that is, to “lead it back,”
to open the way at last to its ultimate truth.

By a striking comparison, Semnanl establishes a connection
between the trap into which the Christian dogma of the Incar¬
nation falls by proclaiming the homoousia and by affirming that
’Isa ibn Maryam is God, and the mystical intoxication in which
such as Hallaj cry out: “I am God” (Ana’l-Haqq). These dangers
are symmetrical. On the one hand the Sufi, on experiencing
thefanafi'llah, mistakes it for the actual and material reabsorp¬
tion of human reality in the godhead; on the other, the Chris¬
tian sees a fana of God into human reality. 1333 This is why Sem¬
nanl perceives on the one side and the other the same immi¬
nent threat of an irregularity in the development of conscious¬
ness. The Sufi would need an experienced shaykh to help him
avoid the abyss and to lead him to the degree that is in truth the
divine center of his being, the latifa haqqiya, where his higher,
spiritual Ego opens. If not, the spiritual energy being wholly
concentrated on this opening, it can happen that the lower ego
is left a prey to extravagant thoughts and delirium. The

127

VI. The Seven Prophets of Your Being

“scales” ( supra IV, 10) are then completely unbalanced; in a
fatal moment of looking back, the newborn higher Ego suc¬
cumbs to what had been overcome and perishes in the moment
of triumph. And this is just as true in the moral domain as in
respect to the metaphysical perception of the divine and of be¬
ing. It is a premature rupture of the process of growth, a
“failed initiation.” One could say that the mortal danger de¬
scribed by SemnanI on both sides is the very same situation with
which the West came face to face when Nietzsche cried out:
“God is dead.”

This then is the peril which confronts the Spiritual seeker in
the mystical station of the black light or luminous darkness. To
sum up briefly Semnanfs conclusion (Commentary to sura 112),
one could put it as follows: if both Sufi and Christian are
menaced by the same danger, it is because there is a revelation
and an opening up of the Ego corresponding to each of the
latlfa. The danger in this case corresponds to the moment when
the Ego makes its appearance ( tajalli ) on the level of the ar¬
canum (whose color is black light and whose prophet is Jesus). If
in the course of spiritual growth “intoxication” has not been
completely eliminated, that is, the subconscious allurements of
the level of the two first latlfa, then a lower mode of perception
continues to function and Abraham’s journey may remain
forever unfinished. This is why the mystery of the theophany,
the manifestation of the Holy Ghost in the visible form of the
Angel Gabriel appearing in Maryam, his “breathing into”
Maryam by which Jesus is made Ruh Allah (Spiritus Dei )—all of
this—was not perceived by the Christians in their dogma of the
Incarnation on the level of the arcanum (latlfa khaflya). They
saw it on the level of data belonging still to the level of the first
two latlfa. Their dogma would have the birth of the one God
take place materially “on earth,” whereas the “Jesus of your
being” is the mystery of the spiritual birth, i.e., of the assump¬
tion to Heaven. They saw the event in the zaman afaql, not in
the zaman anfosl, that is, on the suprasensory plane where the
real event takes place which is the advent of the Soul into the
world of the Soul. The Sufi likewise, on the same level, deviates
from the metaphysical poverty, mystical nakedness, which as
we have seen ( supra V, 3), is the secret of the black light. He
shouts Ana’l-Haqq (I am God) instead of saying, as Ibn ’Arabi

128

§ 1 . A laoddawleh Semnanl (1336)

reminds him, Ana sirr al-Haqq: “I am God’s secret,” the secret,
that is, which conditions the polarity of the two faces, the face
of light and the face of darkness, because the divine Being can¬
not exist without me, nor I exist without Him.

The symmetry of the dangers is reflected in a correspond¬
ing symmetry of spiritual therapeutics. The mystic has to be
“carried away” to the higher spiritual Abode (to pass from the
black Light to the green light), so that the nature of his True
Ego may be revealed to him, not as an ego with the godhead as
its predicate, so to say, but us being the organ and place of
theophany; this means that he will have become fit to be in¬
vested in his light, to be the perfect mirror, the organ of the
theophany. This is the state of the “friend of God,” of whom
the divine Being can say, according to the inspired hadith, so
oft-repeated by the Sufis: “I am the eye through which he sees,
the ear through which he hears, the hand by which he touches
. . .” This divine saying corresponds to the mystic’s: “I am God’s
secret.” Semnanl finds his inspiration regarding these spiritual
therapeutics in a verse which he greatly values and in which the
essence of Qoranic Christology is expressed: “They did not kill
him, they did not crucify him, they were taken in by the ap¬
pearance; God carried him off toward himself (4:156),” i.e. , he
carried him off alive from death. Only an authentic “spiritual
realism,” suprasensory realism, can penetrate the arcanum of
this verse. It demands a polar orientation rising above the di¬
mension which is the only thing able to hold us back from the
reality of the event, namely, the “horizontal” dimension of his¬
tory. On the contrary, what the Sufi is seeking is not at all what
we hypothetically call “the sense of history,” but the inner sense
of his being and of every being; not the material reality, the
datum of earthly history-making (in the zaman dfaqi), but the
“event in Heaven” which alone can save earthly man and bring
him “home.”

That being so, when you listen to some of God’s sayings to
his friend the Prophet, or allusions to them, listen to them, see
them through the subtle organ which is the divine in you, the
“Mohammad of your being" ( latifa haqqiya). The formation of
heavenly man is completed in that subtle center. It is in that
very place that the subtle body grows to its full stature, the body
“acquired” by the mystic’s spiritual practice and which contains

129

VI. The Seven Prophets of Your Being

the "essential heart,” the spiritual child of the “ Abraham of your
being," the one being who is capable of assuming the
theophanic function of pure mirror (“specularity,” mira’iya). 134
The connection between spiritual hermeneutics and mystical
physiology is fully revealed. The understanding of the hidden
meanings and the growth of the subtle organism hidden in the
human being develop concurrently—the growth “from pro¬
phet to prophet” culminating in the full prophetic stature. All
the factors in SemnanT’s theosophical cosmology have to be
taken into account here. As the hidden meanings gradually
come to be understood, the organs of the subtle physiology re¬
ceive energies from universes preceding the sensory universe;
these unite with the organs of the “body of immortality” which
are at the core of the mystic’s person much better than the
“stars of his fate,” since they are the “prophets of his being.”

At this mystical stage, having reached his perfect spiritual
stature, the mystic no longer needs to meditate on the ultimate
latifa, since from then on he is the “Mohammad of his being.”
At this very point we see the full meaning, in SemnanI, of the
theophanic figure we have come to recognize under many and
various names, which SemnanI for his part calls the ostad ghaybi,
the suprasensory master or personal guide. This figure is
clearly the shaykh al-ghayb, the Guide, the “witness in Heaven”
of whom Najm Kobra’s visions informed us. SemnanI discreetly
suggests its further role and function:

Just as the physical sense of hearing [he writes] is a necessary
condition if the hearer is to understand the exoteric meaning of
the Qoran and receive the tafsir from his outer, visible master (os¬
tad shahadi), so the integrity of the heart, of the inner hearing is a
necessary condition if the inspired Spiritual seeker (molham) is to
understand the esoteric meaning of the Qoran and receive the
ta’wil of his inner suprasensory master (ostad ghaybi).

This passage, so admirably condensed and allusive, thus
makes it clear that the inspired mystic’s relationship with his
ostad ghaybi is the same as Mohammad’s relationship with the
Holy Ghost which was his inseparable companion, just as it was
for Jesus. This is why the supreme latifa of the subtle organism
is also related to the “Lotus of the Limit,” the place where the
Prophet saw the angel Gabriel standing in Paradise (53:14);
and also why the pre-eminence of the color green, heralding the

130

§2. The World of Colors and the Man of Light

highest mystical station, is supported by an allusion to the raj-
raf, the green drapery seen by the Prophet covering the horizon
of the Heavens, at the moment of his first vision of the Angel.
And it is immediately clear also why the latifa or subtle organ
known as the “Mohammad of your being” should, from
another aspect, be described as the latifa jabra’eliya , the “angel
Gabriel of your being.” Here the latifa jabra'eliya is, for the mys¬
tic, related with the Angel of Revelation just as Perfect Nature
is related with the Angel of Humanity in Sohravardi’s her¬
meneutics ( supra II, 1). It can also be understood why so many
Sufis, from Jalal RumI to M!r Damad, have seen the annuncia¬
tion of the Holy Ghost-Gabriel to Maryam in their meditations
as an annunciation to every mystic soul. But one can go further
also and conclude that the theophanic figure of the Angel of
Revelation in prophetology, the Angel of knowledge in the “o-
riental theosophy” of the Ishraqiyun, is here the Angel of
spiritual exegesis, that is to say, the one who reveals the hidden
meaning of previous revelations, provided that the mystic pos¬
sesses the ear of the heart, “celestial” hearing ( malakiiti). To this
extent the Angel has the same spiritual function as the Imam in
Shl’ism, the walayat of the Imam as the donor of the hidden
meaning, and it would seem that Shl’ite Sufism alone makes
the idea of the walayat clear from all sides. But one can say that
Semnani’s spiritual doctrine and method comes in the end to
the radical inner realization both of prophetology and of Im-
amology. And this alone is what makes a “Mohammadan.”

He who has become conscious of this latifa, who has reached
it by journeying, step by step, by winged flight or ecstasy, who has
allowed the powers of all his subtle organs to open in freedom
from the taint of illusion and relativity, who has allowed them to
be demonstrated as they should be demonstrated in the pure
state, he it is indeed who can truly be called a Mohammadan.
Otherwise, make no mistake; do not believe that the fact of utter¬
ing the words “I affirm that Mohammad is God’s Messenger” is
enough to make you a Mohammadan.

2. The World of Colors and the Man of Light

The preceding analyses have repeatedly shown us that there
was an affinity, sometimes subtle, sometimes explicit, between
Sufism and Manicheism revealed in their physics and

131

VI. The Seven Prophets of Your Being

metaphysics of light. It would be a fascinating task to pursue
the traces of this affinity in iconography; more fascinating still
if we notice the cross-references between Sufism and Chris¬
tianity, which we can easily foresee are leading us toward Chris¬
tian representations not altogether those of official and histori¬
cal Christianity. Semnani’s indications would already suffice to
put us on the track. The central truth of Christianity may be
conceived in terms of hypostatic union of divinity and human¬
ity; it may be thought out in terms of theophany (tajalli). The
first way was that of the Great Church; we need hardly recall
how this appeared in the judgment of the whole of Islamic
theology. The second way was followed by those who refused
the implied contradiction, whether they happened to be Valen-
tinians or Manicheans, an Apollinarious of Laodicea or, among
the Protestant Spirituals, a Schwenckfeld or a Valentin-Weigel.
This does not in the least mean that they developed a
mythological Christology; they affirmed the idea of a caro
Christi spiritualis.

If we wish to understand the import of the criticisms voiced
by a Sufi like Semnani, as well as the profound intentions of
Shl’ite Imamology, this way of representing it is what we have
to keep in mind, for it implies great consequences for the sci¬
ence of religions in general. This “spiritualized realism” has at
its disposal the whole substance of the “heavenly Earth of Hur-
qalya” for giving body to the psycho-spiritual and to spiritual
events. We have seen Semnani reveal the danger exactly corre¬
sponding to that which threatens Sufism: no longer indeed a
fana fillah, but on the contrary a fana, of the divine in human
reality. If Semnani had used a modern man’s terminology, he
would have spoken of historicization, secularization, social¬
ization—not as of phenomena taking place among others in the
zaman afaql, the “horizontal time” of material historicity, but as
of the phenomenon itself of the fall of the zaman anfosl, a
psycho-spiritual time, into the zaman afaql. In other words, fal¬
ling from events which are made by the history of the soul to a history
which is made by outer events. The first are in no way mythology,
and the iconography that represents them in no way consists of
allegories. But, of course, intentions and procedures differ pro¬
foundly according to the one or the other category of events.
Already one can get an idea of the contrast by referring on the

132

§2. The World of Colors and the Man of Light

one hand to the iconography of the Christus juvenis of the very
first centuries of Christianity (a few types were mentioned
above, II, 2) and on the other hand, either, in the Eastern
Church, to the iconography of th epantokrator endowed with all
the attributes of maturity and virility, 135 or, in the Western
Church, to the iconography of the suffering and crucified Jesus.

What the latter translates is the tendency to attribute to the
divine the human reality of everyday life, even to its confusions
and miseries: the idea that God could only save man by becom¬
ing man in this sense. In contrast, what the first translates is the
idea that God can only come in contact with humanity by trans¬
figuring the latter; that the salvation of man imprisoned in
Ahrimanian Darkness can be nothing other than an assumption
to Heaven, operated by the all-powerful attraction of the divine
Light, without the latter having to nor being able to be made
captive, for then the possibility of salvation would be abolished.
The preparation and expectation of this triumph are exactly
what fill the acts of the Manichean dramaturgy of salvation.
This soteriology, the liberation of the “particles of light” taken
up from their prison and at last rejoining their like, is exactly
that of a Sohravardl and of a Semnani. Hence their
metaphysics of light surrounding their physiology of the man
of light, itself centered around the presence or the attraction of
a Perfect Nature or of a “witness in Heaven,” who is for the
individuality of the mystic the homologue of the heavenly Twin
of Man!, that is to say, Christ or the Virgin of light. This return
of “light to light” as a suprasensory event is what Manichean
painting intended to make available to sensory perception. If
iconography reveals an affinity between its methods and those
of Persian miniatures, this will show us another affinity in
depth.

And so this deep affinity, discernible in the affinity between
the technical processes of Manichean iconography and Persian
miniatures, is the very one which operated in the eighth and
ninth centuries of our era, within the spiritual circles where
Shfite gnosis was formed. 138 The very same idea which domi¬
nates Shi’ite philosophy, that of the Imam and of Imamology,
determines a structure to which three fundamental themes are
available, in which the affinity between Shfite gnosis and Man¬
ichean gnosis is discovered. Of these three themes, the theme

133

VI. The Seven Prophets of Your Being

of the walayat is perhaps dominant, because it crystallizes
around it the theme of the cycles of Prophecy and the theme of
the spiritual sciences of nature, alchemy, and astrology, which
are the bases of Manichean cosmology and biology.

The theme of the walayat has already come up here,
whether apropos of the vision of the seven abdal, the seven stars
near the pole, according to Ruzbehan, or apropos of the
esoteric hierarchy, organized in the image of the celestial dome
whose keystone is the pole (the hidden Imam) and which fills
the function of cosmic salvation ( supra III, 2 and 3). We saw it
appear again, a few pages ago, apropos of the idea of the inner
master, ostad ghaybi, “the angel Gabriel of your being,” who, in
his role of initiator in the hidden meaning of the revelations,
appeared in SemnanI as the “inner Imam” and besides as an
interiorization of Imamology. We have already pointed out the
difficulty of translating simultaneously the aspects connoted by
the term: the difficulty is due no doubt to the fact that the
implied structure has nothing exactly corresponding to it in the
West, except among the Spirituals incidentally referred to
above. This religious structure is quite different from all that
we habitually designate by the word “Church”; it provides in
each of the cycles of Prophecy ( nobowwat ), a cycle of Initiation
{walayat) to the hidden meaning of the revealed letter. Shl’ite
gnosis, as an initiatic religion, is an initiation in a doctrine. This
is why it is particularly unsatisfactory to translate, as is often
done, walayat as “holiness.” What this term connotes, namely
the canonic idea of holiness, is very far from the point. Walayat
as an initiation and as an initiatic function, is the spiritual
ministry of the Imam whose charisma initiates his faithful in
the esoteric meaning of the prophetic revelations. Better still,
the Imamate is this very meaning. The Imam as wall is the
“grand master,” the master of initiation (thus transposed to
another level, the twofold exoteric acceptation of the word wall
can be conserved: on the one hand, friend, companion; on the
other, lord, protector).

The second theme, that of the cycles of Revelation, is im¬
plied in the very idea of the walayat. The walayat postulates in
fact, as we have just said, a theory of the cycles of Prophecy:
prophetology and Imamology are two inseparable lights. Now,
this theory of cycles of Revelation, although in Ismaelian gnosis

134

§2. The World of Colors and the Man of Light

it has features reminding of the theme of the Verus Propheta in
Ebionite Christianity, is well known to be a Manichean theory.
On the other hand, the “physiology of the man of light,” the
growth of subtle organs, is modelled in SemnanI, as we have
seen, on this same theory of cycles of Prophecy. The subtle or¬
gans are respectively the “prophets of your being”: their
growth into a “body of resurrection,” in striking corre¬
spondence with the cycle of resurrections of the adept in Is¬
lamic gnosis, is the microcosmic actualization and the knowl¬
edge of the cycles of Prophecy.

Finally, as the third theme, alchemy and astrology, as the
spiritual sciences of nature, are fundamental to the Manichean
soteriology of light; we have also heard Najm Kobra call the
seeker the “particle of light” imprisoned in Darkness, and de¬
clare that his own method was none other than that of alchemy.
This alchemical operation is what produces the aptitude for
visionary apperception of the suprasensory worlds, these being
manifested by the figures and constellations which shine in the
Skies of the soul, the Sky of the Earth of Light. These spiritual
constellations are the homologues of those interpreted in
esoteric astronomy (supra III, 3), thus exemplifying on both
sides one and the same figure dominating the Imago mundi: the
Imam who is thepole, just as in terms of spiritual alchemy he is
the “Stone” or the “Elixir.”

These are the three themes constructed on parallel lines in
Manichean gnosis and in Shl'ite gnosis, which amplify and ex¬
plicate the fundamental motif of the theophany, whose presup¬
positions and implications have been recalled above. Now, this
theophanic feeling common to Shl’ism and to Sufism (and
which triumphs particularly in Shfite Sufism), determines the
Shl’ite apperception of the person of the Imam, as it deter¬
mines the apperception of beauty in those of the Sufis, disci¬
ples of Ruzbehan of Shiraz for example, to whom in particular
we have restricted the designation “fedeli d’amore.” Con¬
sequently we have to appeal to this same fundamental
theophanic feeling in order to account for common pictorial
techniques in iconography. The person of the Imam (that is to
say, the eternal Imam in his twelve personal exemplifications in
the case of Twelve-Imam Shi’ism) is the pre-eminent the¬
ophanic form ( mazhar ). The person of the shahid, the beautiful

135

VI. The Seven Prophets of Your Being

being chosen as the witness of contemplation, is for the
“fedele” his personal theophanic form; in the course of this
study we have identified this figure under diverse names.
There is something in common between the chivalric devotion
that binds the Shi’ite adept to the theophanic person of the
Imam and the loving service that binds the mystic lover to the
earthly form through which the pre-eminent divine
Attribute—beauty—is revealed to him. The historical origins of
this mutual inclination will perhaps never be definitively
clarified; it is established at the time and in the spiritual circles
that we have recalled above. What holds the attention of the
phenomenologist is the testimony of states experienced; the
Manichean feeling of the drama of the universe was particu¬
larly fitted to develop the feeling of a personal covenant of
fidelity; the whole ethic of Shl’ism and Iranian Sufism culmi¬
nates in the idea of javanmardi, that is to say “of spiritual
chivalry.”

From here on, it becomes possible to fully evaluate the tes¬
timony that we owe to a writer of the eleventh century, Abu
Shakur Salimi, a writer who describes for us how the Mani-
cheans of Central Asia were marked by a form of worship which
was the passionate adoration they professed in regard to
beauty and all beautiful beings. In our day objections have
been raised to this testimony which cancel themselves out by
the fact that they show purely and simply a confusion between
the implications of the Manichean physics of light and with
what we habitually think of in the West in terms of hypostatic
union. Hence the warning that we repeated at the beginning of
the present chapter: the pure philologist had better keep out of
the closed field of philosophy than enter it with ill-adapted
weapons. 137

If one thinks in terms of theophany ( tajalli , zohur), not in
terms of hypostatic union, one is speaking only of a corporeal
receptacle ( mazhar ), which fills the role and function of a mirror.
This receptacle, caro spiritualis, can be perceived in various
ways; the alchemy of which Najm Kobra speaks produces the
aptitude for this perception by working on the organs of per¬
ception of the contemplator (for which and through which, as
we have heard Najm RazI declare, events are at the same time
sensory and suprasensory). This is why we have been reminded

136

§2. The World of Colors and the Man of Light

many times that the vision varies in proportion to the aptitude:
your contemplation is worth what you are. And so the Ismae-
lian authors, Abu Ya’qub SejestanT among others, lay stress, as
though to forestall the above-mentioned ill-founded objec¬
tions, on the fact that beauty is not an attribute immanent in
physical nature, nor a material attribute of the flesh; physical
beauty is itself a spiritual attribute and a spiritual phenomenon.
It can be perceived only by the organ of light; perception of it
effects, as such, from now on the passage from the sensory to
the suprasensory plane. Perhaps Abu Shakur’s description
exaggerates in detail some of the features common to the Man-
icheans and the Hallajian Sufis, but, as L. Massignon wrote,
“his description summarizes the essential character of that
peculiar development of crystalline aesthetic sentimentality, as
transparent as a rainbow, which Islam derived from a rather
dramatic Manichaean concept, that of the imprisonment of
particles of the divine light in the demoniac matrix of matter.”

Here we have the fundamental esthetic feeling, persisting
in a variety of developments, which is here expressed by a
common pictorial technique. ManI has been traditionally re¬
garded in Islam as the initiator of painting and the greatest
master of that art (in classical Persian, the terms nagarestan,
nagar-khaneh, are used as signifying the “house of Man!” to des¬
ignate a gallery of paintings, a book of painted pictures).
Everyone knows that the purpose of his painting was essentially
didactic; it was intended to lead vision beyond the sensory: to
incite love and admiration of the “Sons of Light,” horror of the
“Sons of Darkness.” The liturgical illumination so highly de¬
veloped by the Manicheans was, essentially, a scenography of
the “liberation of the light.” With this aim in view, the Manic¬
heans were led to represent light in their miniatures by preci¬
ous metals. If we associate the persistence of the Manichean
technique and its decorative themes with the resurgence of the
Manichean physics of light in the “oriental theosophy” of
SohravardI, and above all in certain psalms composed by
him, 138 then we will be the better able to keep in mind longer
all that is still being suggested by these lines of L.Massignon:

The art of Persian miniatures, without atmosphere, without
perspective, without shadows, and without modelling, in the
metallic splendour of its polychromy, peculiar to itself, bears wit-

137

VI. The Seven Prophets of Your Being

ness to the fact that its originators were undertaking a kind of
alchemic sublimation of the particles of divine light imprisoned in
the “mass” of the picture. Precious metals, gold and silver, come
to the surface of the fringes and crowns, of the offerings and
cups, to escape from the matrix of the colours.

Escape, ascent and deliverance: this is also what visions of
colored lights heralded for Najm Kobra; colors in the pure
state, suprasensory, freed from the Ahrimanian darkness of
the black object which had absorbed them, and restored, just as
they were opened up to the divine Night “at the approach to
the pole,” in the Terra lucida “which secretes its own light” (supra
III, 1). In this pure luminescence we recognize one Iranian
representation above all others: th eXvarnah, the light-of-glory
which, from their first beginning, the beams of light establish
in their being, of which it is at once the glory (8o£a) and the
destiny (tv\ t?) (supra II, 3). This is what in iconography has
been represented as the luminous nimbus, the aura gloriae
which haloes the kings and priests of the Mazdean religion; this
way of representing it has been transferred to the figures of
Buddhas and Bodhisattvas as also the heavenly figures of
primitive Christian art. It is the Xvarnah that forms the
vermillion-gold background of many Manichean paintings of
Turfan and of the paintings in certain Persian manuscripts of
the school of Shiraz, survivals of the celebrated mural paintings
of the Sassanids.

Let us make no mistake as to the meaning of these red-gold
background colors, when we find them again in the gold back¬
ground of the Byzantine icons and mosaics. Whether it is a
question of the nimbus of personages or of the visionary geog¬
raphy of what has been called “ xvarnah landscapes” (Strzy-
gowski), it remains always a question of the same transfiguring
light: lights returning to their origin or lights descend¬
ing to meet them as far as the surface of the objects out of
which they attract them. There is neither contrast nor rupture
in the idea, only the prolongation and persistence of one and
the same idea. For in the whole of Eastern Christianity there is
always a latent monophysitism in which lies the same and im¬
perative desire for transfiguration, caro spirituals Christi, of
which the fana ji’llah of Sufism is perhaps at once the prevision¬
ing or the accomplishment. For contrast and rupture, we have

138

§3. The “Physiological” Colors According to Goethe

to look elsewhere: there where the Shadow and the shadows
have definitively banished this light from iconography.

3. The “Physiological” Colors According to Goethe

We shall not attempt to recapitulate the leading themes of the
present study; our concern is not to come to conclusions; the
aim of true research is to open the way to new questions.
Among the questions which remain to be formulated or de¬
veloped, there is one that at this very moment spontaneously
arises. What we have analyzed referring to visionary appercep¬
tions, suprasensory senses, subtle organs or centers that de¬
velop in conjunction with a growing interiorization—in brief,
all the themes constituting a “physiology of the man of
Light”—have shown us that the colored photisms, the supra¬
sensory perceptions of colors in the pure state, result from an
inner activity of the subject and are not merely the result of
passively received impressions of a material object. Whoever is
familiar with or in sympathy with Goethe’s Farbenlehre (his
theory or rather his doctrine of colors) inevitably wonders whether
there is not a fruitful comparison to be attempted between our
“physiology of the man of light” and Goethe’s idea of
“physiological colors.”

Let us keep in mind some of Najm Kobra’s principal
themes, for example that the object of the search is the divine
Light and the seeker is himself a particle of this light; that our
method is the method of alchemy; that like aspires to its like;
that like can be seen and known only by its like. It certainly
seems then that Goethe had himself mapped out the way for
anyone wishing to respond to the Iranian Sufi’s invitation to
penetrate to the heart of the problem:

The eye [writes Goethe], owes its existence to light. From an
auxiliary, sensory apparatus, animal and neutral, light has called
forth, produced for itself, an organ like unto itself; thus the eye
was formed by light, of light and for light, so that the inner light
might come in contact with the outer light. At this very point we
are reminded of the ancient Ionian School, which never ceased to
repeat, giving it capital importance, that like is only known by like.
And thus we shall remember also the words of an ancient mystic
that I would paraphrase as follows:

139

VI. The Seven Prophets of Your Being

If the eye were not by nature solar,

How should we be able to look at the light?

If God’s own power did not live in us,

How would the divine be able to carry us off in ecstasy?”' 39

One can leave it to the Iranian Sufis who have been quoted
here to make for themselves the spontaneous association of
their testimony with that of the anonymous mystic of old whom
Goethe calls as witness. The idea of a “physiology of the man of
light,” as outlined in Najm Kobra’s theory of the suprasensory
senses and Semnani’s theory of subtle organs enveloped in
color, links up with Goethe’s vast scheme, where the author
assigns priority to the “physiological colors” in heading his
great work and, in its amplification, even treats explicitly the
mystic significance of colors and of the experience of colors.
The point is that the term “physiology” in no way refers here to
some kind of material organism, but to something that
rationalist science tries to do without in accepting nothing apart
from sensory, empirical data except abstract ideas available to
the ordinary mind. Goethe likewise begins by reminding us
that the phenomenon he designates as the phenomenon of
“physiological colors” has been known for a very long time;
unfortunately, due to the radical lack of an appropriate
phenomenology, it has been neither comprehensible nor given
its proper value; there has been discussion of colores adventici,
imagmarii, phantastici, vitia fugitiva, ocular spectra, etc. In short,
these colors have been regarded as something of an illusory,
accidental, insubstantial nature, and relegated to the realm of
dangerous fantasies, because a concept of the universe wherein
physical reality is regarded as total reality, in fact, no longer
allows the suprasensory to be seen otherwise than as spectral.
In contrast, we have here learned to see something quite dif¬
ferent in the suprasensory world of which our Sufis have been
speaking. And this “something quite different” is in accord
with what is affirmed in the Farbenlehre, which postulates that
the colors referred to therein as “physiological” pertain to the
subject, to the organ of sight, to the “eye which is itself light,”
and what is more, that these colors are the very conditions of
the act of seeing, which remains incomprehensible if it is not
viewed as an interaction, a reciprocal action. 140

140

§ 3 . The “Physiological" Colors According to Goethe

The term “physiological,” applied to colors for this reason,
gradually takes on its full meaning and justification to the de¬
gree that the notion of the “subject” in question unfolds. There
is essentially a refusal to admit pure exteriority or extrinsicity,
as if the eye did no more than passively reflect the outer world.
The perception of color is an action and reaction of the soul
itself which is communicated to the whole being; an energy is
then emitted through the eyes, a spiritual energy that cannot
be weighed or measured quantitatively (it could be evaluated
only by the mystical scales of which Najm Kobra has spoken,
supra IV, 10). “The colors we see in bodies do not affect the eye
as if they were something foreign to it, as if it were a matter of
an impression received purely from outside. No, this organ is
always so situated as to produce colors itself, to enjoy a pleasant
sensation if something homogeneous to its nature is presented
to it from outside” (§760). And this because colors only occa¬
sionally modify the latent determinative capacity or power
which is the eye itself. The affirmation returns continually as a
leitmotiv to the fact that the eye at this point produces another
color, its own color. The eye searches at the side of a given col¬
ored space for a free space where it can produce the color
called for by itself. This is an effort toward totality involving
the fundamental law of chromatic harmony, 141 and this is why
“if it happens that the totality of colors is presented to the eye
from the outside as an object, the eye takes pleasure in it be¬
cause at such a moment its own activity is presented to it as a
reality” (§808).

Is there not a similar phenomenon of totality in the reunion
of the two fiery lights issuing the one from Heaven, the other
from the earthly person, which Najm Kobra perceived as the
theophanic form of his “witness in Heaven” {supra IV, 9), that is
to say, of the heavenly counterpart conditioning the whole of
his being? And what justifies the comparison are the very
words of the old mystic adopted by Goethe and paraphrased in
the introduction to his own book.

From the mutual exchange between like and like, from the
interaction thus suggested in general, the idea of specific ac¬
tions begins to become clearer; these actions are never arbi¬
trary and their effects are sufficient to attest that “physiological

141

VI. The Seven Prophets of Your Being

color” as such is an experience of the soul, that is, a spiritual
experience of color itself:

From the idea of polarity inherent in the phenomenon, from
the knowledge that we have reached of its particular determina¬
tions, we can conclude that particular impressions of colors are
not interchangeable, but that they act in a specific way and must
produce conditions having a decisive specific effect on the living
organism. The same applies to the soul ( Gemut ): experience
teaches us that particular colors produce definite mental impres¬
sions . 142

These are the impressions on which the meanings of colors
are based, rising by degrees to their mystical meaning, the very
meaning which has held the whole attention of our Iranian
Sufi masters. On the subject of these meanings, the Farbenlehre
concludes in a series of admirable pages: “All that has been said
has been an attempt to show that each color produces a definite
effect on the human being and by that very fact reveals its es¬
sential nature to the eye as well as to the soul. It follows that
color can be used for certain physical, moral, and aesthetic
purposes.” It can also be used for another purpose which
makes use of the effect and expresses still better its inner mean¬
ing , namely, the symbolic use which Goethe carefully distin¬
guishes from the allegorical (in contrast with our habit, which
unfortunately is more often than not to confuse allegory and
symbol). 143

Finally it will be easy to foresee that color can assume a mysti¬
cal significance. In effect, the schema in which the diversity of col¬
ors is represented suggests the archetypal conditions (Ur-
verhaltnisse) that belong equally to man’s visual perception and to
nature; that being established, there is no doubt that one can
make use of their respective relationships, as of a language, if one
wishes to express those archetypal conditions, which do not of
themselves affect the senses with the same force or with the same
diversity . 144

And this is in fact the language in which the colored
photisms spoke to all Najm Kobra disciples, because color is not
a passive impression, but the language of the soul to itself.
Thus, in the heptad of colors, SemnanI perceived the heptad of
the organs of the man of light, the heptad of the “prophets of
his being.”

The final point made by Goethe may allow us to perceive

142

§3. The “Physiological” Colors According to Goethe

how the spiritual experience of color can initiate in the revela¬
tion of the “witness in Heaven,” the heavenly Guide of whom
Sohravardi, Najm Kobra, SemnanI, have all spoken.

If the polarity of yellow and blue has truly been grasped, if in
particular their intensification into red has been well noted and it
has become clear how these opposites tend toward one another
and reunite in a third color, then it cannot be doubted that the
intuition of a profound secret is beginning to dawn in us, a
foretaste of the possibility that a spiritual meaning might be at¬
tributed to these two separate and mutually opposed entities.
When they are seen to produce green below and red. above, one can
hardly refrain from thinking that one is contemplating here the
earthly creatures and there the heavenly creatures of the Elohim
(§919).

Once again the words of the anonymous mystic adopted by
Goethe are what enable us to foresee the total convergence be¬
tween Goethe’s doctrine of color and the physics of light of our
Iranian mystics, on whose side it represents a tradition going
back to ancient pre-Islamic Persia. The indications we have re¬
ceived were elusive. Quite a number of questions will remain in
the air, but it was worth while taking the necessary steps to
open them. To the extent that Goethe’s optics is an “an¬
thropological optics,” it runs counter to the requirements and
habits of what is called the scientific mind, and will continue to
do so. It is the scientists’ business to pursue the aim they have
set for themselves. But here we are concerned with a different
question, a different aim, common to those who have experi¬
enced in similar fashion the “action of Light.”

This aim is the superexistence of the higher personal indi¬
viduality, attained by reunion with the individual’s own dimen¬
sion of Light, his “face of light,” that gives the individuality its
total dimension. For this reunion to be possible the inclination
toward the “polar dimension” must have opened in the terres¬
trial being, the inclination heralded by fugitive flashes of
superconsciousness. The physiology of the man of light tends
toward this opening—this is what SemnanI was expressing
when he spoke of the spiritual child which the “Abraham of
your being” must procreate. Najm Kobra admits having medi¬
tated for a long time before he understood who was this light
that flamed in the Sky of his soul while the flame of his own
being was rising to meet it. If he understood that the light

143

VI. The Seven Prophets of Your Being

sought was there, it was because he knew who was seeking the
light. He himself told us this: “What is sought is the divine
Light, the seeker is himself a particle of the light.” “If God’s
own power were not living in us, how would He be able to
transport us in ecstasy?” The mystic of old who inspired the
prologue of the Farbenlehre was asking the same question.

The literal concordance of the evidence allows us, so far, to
consider the investigation of the origins and causes of the
“physiological colors” as the search for experimental verifica¬
tion of the physiology of the man of light, that is to say of the
phenomena of colored lights perceived and interpreted by our
Iranian Sufis. On the one side and on the other, the same
Quest of the man of light, and the answer to both has been, so
to speak, given in advance by Mary Magdalen, in the book of
the Pistis Sophia, when she says: “The man of light in me,” “my
being of light,” has understood these things, has brought out
the meaning of these words (supra II, 1). Who is sought? Who is
the seeker? The two questions, belonging together, cannot re¬
main theoretical. In every case the revealing light has preceded
the revealed light, and phenomenology does no more than un¬
cover later the already accomplished fact. It is then that the five
senses are transmuted into other senses. Superata tellus sidera
donat: “And the earth transcended brings us the gift of the
stars” (Boethius).

144

NOTES

I. ORIENTATION

1. A brief note on the transcriptions adopted: because of the unavoidable
necessity for typographical simplification, diacritical marks have been sat-
rificed; hence, the emphatic consonants of the Arabic alphabet (d, t, s, z) are not
distinguished from the ordinary consonants either in the Arabic or Persian
words. Similarly, the hamza and the ’ayn are both transcribed simply by an apos¬
trophe. As for the others, h always represents an aspiration; kh = the German
ch or Spanish J (likewise the* in words derived from the Avesta). The macron
accent represents the scriptioplena , u is pronounced as in “food.”

2. On the ancient Mappae mundi representing an ideal divisio orbis in which
the East figures at the top, while Jerusalem is in the center, see the evocative
remarks of L.-I. Ringbom, Graltempel und Parodies (Stockholm, 1951), p. 254 ff.

2a. The Gospel according to Thomas , Coptic text established and translated by
A. Guillaumont, H.-C. Puech.etal. (London, 1959), log. 3, pp. 3, 19-26.

3. See our work on Avicenna and the Visionary Recital (hereafter ref. Av¬
icenna), translated from the French by Willard R. Trask, Bollingen Series,
LXVI (New York: Pantheon Books, 1960) Pt. II, Ch. 12, 13, and 18, comm. 4.
At the time of publication this work appears to have caused some surprise,
because it was entirely conceived in the Iranian perspective, with all its implica¬
tions. Some people do not see Avicenna except clothed in his Latin scholastic
armor. Furthermore, full comprehension of any author demands that one take
into account the manner in which his thought was in fact a living part of the
experience of the spiritual environment in which he was recognized; the pre¬
text of taking into account only earlier texts (which he himself may not have
known) is a device used for erroneous, historical “explanation.” Still worse,
anyone is free to profess the rationalism which suits him, but this does not
authorize him to advance misinterpretations, particularly in reference to the
word “esoteric” (rat tcrtu, batm,as opposed to ra eftv, zahir). Avicenna’s visionary
recitals form a trilogy; to isolate one or another of them is the surest way of not
seeing their meaning. As the authors quoted in the present book frequently
remind us, like can only be known by like; every mode of understanding corre¬
sponds to the mode of being of the interpreter. I am too convinced of this not
to recognize how hopeless it is to try to convey the meaning of symbols to
people who are blind to them. The Gospel parable of the Feast (Matt. 22:2-10;
Lk. 14:16-24) means precisely what it says, even from the scientific point of
view. It would be ridiculous to engage in polemics against the men or the
women who refuse to come to the feast; their refusal inspires only sadness and
compassion.

II. THE MAN OF LIGHT AND HIS GUIDE

4. See Avicenna, Pt. I, pp. 231-234; W. Scott, Hermetica, IV (Oxford,
1936): 106 (Greek text), 108, 122, 124-125; J. Ruska, Tabula Smaragdina
(Heidelberg, 1926), pp. 26-28 (German translation).

5. 'a-avaro\-p (rising, east);S=8vi(ri'; (setting, west); a=’apKTOs (the Bear,
north); p = ptorqpfipLot (midday, south).

6. See Carl Schmidt, Koptisch-gnostische Schriften, I, Die Pistis Sophia . . . , 2 tc

145

Notes

Auflage bearbeitet. . . von Walter Till (Berlin, 1954), pp. 189, 1. 12; 206,1. 33;
221,1.30.

7. See our En Islam iranien: aspects spirituels et philosophiques (Paris: Gallimard,
1971), II, Bk. II, Ch. VI, “Le Recit de 1’exil occidental et la geste gnostique”;
Hans Soderberg, La Religion des Cathares (Uppsala, 1949), p. 249. See also the
rather obscure verse 30 in The Gospel according to Thomas, p. 21 of the edition
cited above (and the anxiety provoked in Aphraate, the “Persian Sage,” trans.
J. Doresse, p. 167).

8. Pseudo-Magriti, Das Ziel des Weisen , /, Arabischer Text, hrsgb. v. Hellmut
Ritter, Studien der Bibliotheh Warburg, XII (Leipzig, 1933). This is the work of
which a medieval Latin translation was published under the title of Picatrix
(Arabi cBuqratis = '\mroKpaTT]t, Hippocrates). See also our study Rituel sabeen et
exegeseismaeliennedu rituel, Eranos-Jahrbuch, XIX (Zurich: Rhein-Verlag, 1951).

9. Ibid., p. 193. The entire chapter concerning the Perfect Nature is sup¬
posed to be derived from a Kitab al-Istamakhis, in which Aristotle pours out
advice to Alexander and instructs him how to invoke his Perfect Nature, fol¬
lowing the example of Hermes.

10. Ibid., p. 194; S eeEn Islam iranien, loc. cit.

11. These are the very words which are reported in the well-known "hadith
of the vision” to have been uttered by the Prophet; See our Creative Imagination
in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi, trans. from the French by Ralph Mannheim, Bol-
lingen Series, XCI (Princeton, N.J : Princeton University Press, 1969), p. 272
ff. (hereafter abbreviated as Sufism of Ibn ’Arabi).

12. Das Ziel des Weisen, p. 188.

13. See the well-known verse in the Qoran, the Light (24:35), part of which
has been included here as the epigraph to Ch. I: “The image of His light is as a
niche wherein is a lamp. The lamp is in a glass. The glass is as it were a shining
star. ...”

14. See J. Ruska, Tabula smaragdina , pp. 134-135 (Arabic text) and pp. 138-
139 (German trans.). The “Guarded Tablet” (laxvh mahfuz 85:22) on which the
archetype of the Qoran is written, has been identified by some adepts with the
Tabula smaragdina. Regarding the emerald brilliance shining here in the night,
compare the relationship between the green light and the “black light" in Sem-
nani, infra VI.

15. See the texts cited in our Fn Islam iranien, II, Bk. II, Ch. Ill and VI.

16. See Avicenna Pt. I, pp. 88-90. Regarding Abu’l-Barakat, see principally S.
Pines, Nouvelles etudes sur . . . Abu'l-Barahat al-BaghdatE, Memoires de la Societe des
Etudes juives, I (Paris, 1955); Studies in Abu'l-Barahat al-Baghdddi s Poetics and
Metaphysics, Scnpta Hierosolymitana, VI (Jerusalem, 1960).

17. See our edition of this work in Sohravardi, Opera metaphysica et mystica, I,
Bibiliotheca Islamica , XVI (Leipzig-Istanbul, 1945):464.

18. In the Book of Elucidations (Kitab al-Talunhat) ed. ibid., p. 108, # 83.

19. S eeEn Islam iranien, II, Bk. II, Ch. III.

20. For the context of this theme, see out Sufism of Ibn ’Arabl (supra, n. 11),
pp. 169-173 and p. 346, n. 70. See also En Islam iranien, III, Bk. V. Ch. I,
“Confessions extatiques de Mir Damad.”

21. See Avicenna, Pt. I, p. 157 ff., and M. R. James, The Apocryphal New Testa¬
ment (Oxford, 1950), pp. 411-415.

22. H. Leisegang, La Gnose, trans. J. Gouillard (ftris, 1951), p. 249.

146

Notes

23. Both the Arabic text and the paraphrase in Persian were published in
vol. II of our Oeuvres philosophiques el mystiques of Shihaboddin Yahya
Sohravardi, Bibliotheque Iranienne, II (Teheran-Paris, 1952); see the Pro-
legomenes in French at the beginning of the book, p. 85 ff„ and En Islam iranien, II, Bk.

II, Ch. VI. We have published a translation into French of the whole cycle of
Sohravardl’s mystical recitals under the title L'archange empourpre, Documents
spirituels, 14 (Paris: Fayard, 1976).

24. The text entitled Khauid al-Hayah (The Cistern of the Water of Life), la
version arabe de I’Amrtakunda, was published by Yusuf Hosayn in the Journal
asiatique 213 (1928): 291-344. There is also an unpublished version of it in
Persian. Regarding the attribution to Avicenna, see G. C. Anawati, Torn de bib-
liographie avicennienne (Cairo, 1950), p. 254, no. 197.

For further details on the content of this brief Irano-Indian spiritual ro¬
mance, parts of which already exist in Sohravardi and which clear titling of the
mss makes it impossible to attribute to Avicenna, see our study Pour une
morphologie de la spiritualite shi'ite, Eranos jahrbuch, XXIX (Zurich, 1961), Ch. V.
and En Islam iranien, II, Bk. II, Ch. VI, 5.

25. The formula 1 x 1 is also given by Ruzbehan as that of the esoteric tawld.
See our study on the Sufism of Ruzbehan Baqli of Shiraz in En Islam iranien,

III, Bk. Ill, Ch. VI, 6.

26. Poimandres, §§ 2-4, 7-8: Corpus Hermelicum (ed. A. D. Nock, trans, A. J.
Festugiere) I (Paris, 1945): 7 and 9.

27. Martin Dibelius, Der Hirt des Hermas, (Tubingen, 1923), p. 491. Greek
text ed. Molly Whittaker, Die apostolischen Vater, I (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag,
1956): 22, Visio V, 1 ff.

28. See the psychological commentary of M.-L. von Franz, Die Passio Per-
petuae, following C. G. Jung, Aion, Untersuchungen zur Symbolgeschichte (Zurich,
1951), pp. 436-438. On Christos-Angelos see Martin Werner, Die Entstehung des
christlichen Dogmas, 2nd ed. (Bern, 1953), pp. 322-388.

29. Fravarti is the original form of the word, which, due to an erroneous
association with a similar term, was traditionally spelt Fravashi (in modern Per¬
sian, farvahar ,foruhar).

30. For what follows, see our two studies in which references to the original
texts are given: Le Temps cyclique dans le mazdeisme el dans I'lsmaelisme, Eranos¬
jahrbuch, XX (Zurich, 1952: 169 ff. (cited hereafter as Temps cyclique) and our
book Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth, trans. from the French by Nancy Pear¬
son, Bollingen Series, XCI:2 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
1977): 40 ff. (cited hereafter as Spiritual Body).

31. Regarding this question we could spell out the anth ropology given in the
Bundahishn (the Mazdean Book of the Creation), wherein man is said to be
composed of five forces: body, soul, spirit, individuality, and guardian spirit
(for the texts see H. S. Nyberg, Questions de cosmogonic el de cosmologie mazdeenes,
in Journal asiatique 214 (1929) :232-233). This is, in short, the effort attempted
by the dastur J. J. Modi, in The Religious Ceremonies and Customs of the Parsers,
2nd ed. (Bombay, 1937), pp. 388-401. But his analysis of the “spiritual constitu¬
tion of man” fails to give a satisfactory picture of the posthumous relation of
the fravarti to the soul; what is more, it says nothing about the episode of the
meeting with and recognition of Daena. So it seems that there is a defect in his
schematization, and that the solution has to be thought out in another way.

32. See H. W. Bailey, Zoroaslrian Problems in the Ninth-Century Books (Oxford,

147

Notes

1943), pp. 110-115 (texts of Zatspram 29:9 and Datastan idenik 23:3). Of course,
much more stress than is possible here should be placed on the data of the
problem posed and the meaning of the solution proposed.

33. On this topography, see our Spiritual Body, p. 27 ff.

34. G. van der Leeuw, Phanomenologie der Religion § 16 (Tubingen, 1933), p.
125.

35. Nasiroddin Tust, The Rawdatu’l Taslim commonly called Tasawwurat, Per¬
sian text ed. by W. Ivanow (Leiden-Bombay, 1950), pp. 44, 65, 70; see our
Temps cyclique, p. 210 ff., nn. 86, 89 and 100.

36. See also the theme of the heavenly houri in Nasir TusT, Aghaz o any am, Ch.
XIX, Publications of the University of Teheran, CCCI (Teheran, 1335 s.h.):
47-48.

37. E. S. Drower, The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran (Oxford, 1937), pp. 54-55.

38. See Henri-Charles Puech, Le Manicheisme, son fondateur, sa doctrine (Paris,
1949), pp. 43-44; and our£n Islam iranien, II, Bk. II, Ch. VI, 4.

39. A Manichaean Psalm-Book, Pt. II, ed. C.R.C. Allberry (Stuttgart, 1938):
42,1.22.

40. See principally the texts collected by Georgio Widengren, The Great Vohu
Manah and the Apostle of God (Uppsala, 1945), pp. 17 ff., 25 ff., 33 ff.; Hans
Soderberg, La Religion des Cathares (Uppsala, 1949), pp. 174 ff., 211 ff., 247 ff.

41. See En Islam Iranien, II, Bk. II, Ch. VI, 4; and Widengren, op. cit., pp.
19-20. Particularly relevant are the homologies among the triads issuing from
each of the five “Fathers” or fundamental archetypes ( Kephalaia , Ch. VII, pp.
34-36). It is the image of light (homologue of the Virgin of Light) that “evokes”
the three Angels or deities coming to meet one of the Elect at the moment of
death. A far lengthier study than is possible here could be made concerning the
Gnostic theme of the Angel as the heavenly Alter Ego and savior. Note the
correspondence between the Gnostic terms iln>xotyu> yos, ilruxoiro/jiiTOi, ‘oSrjyos,
'Tjye/ioiv (rector) and the fundamental Iranian term designating the function of
the savior and guide of the sou \: parvanak (in Mandean, parwanka ; Widengren,
op. cit., p. 79 ff.). In modern Persian: parwardan, to nourish, to educate; parwd
kardan , to take care of.

42. Philo, Quod detenus potiori insidiari soleat, English trans. by F. H. Colson
and G. H. Whittaker, II, The Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass., 1950):
216-219.

43. Namely Svetasvatara-Upanishad and Kathaka-Upanishad, cit. by Fritz
Meier, in the great work quoted below ir note 64.

III. MIDNIGHT SUN AND CELESTIAL POLE

44. For the “Earth of seven keshvars,” the cartographic process, and the
references to the texts, see our Spiritual Body, pp. 17-24.

45. For the texts, see ibid., pp. 32-36.

46. Ibid., p 73 ff., 84 ff.; See our Prolegomenes II aux oeuvres philosophiques et
mystiques de SohravanB ( supra n. 23), pp. 39-55, concerning the structure of the
pleroma of Lights, and p. 85 ff. on the connection between the Recital of the
Occidental -Exile and the Avicennan Recital of Hayy ibn Yaqzan. We also intend to
publish shortly a translation of Sohravardt’s great book Hikmat al Ishraq (the
“oriental" theosophy), together with the Glosses of Molla Sadra Shirazi (d.
1640), the latter being equal in importance to an original work (see our ed. and

148

Notes

trans. of the Livre des penetrations metaphysiques (Kitab al-Masha’ir), Bibl.
Iranienne, X (Teheran-Paris, 1964), Intr., p. 40.

47. As Mohsen Fayz (an Iranian Shi’ite theologian of the seventeenth cen¬
tury) repeats; See out Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi, p. 351 f. See the translation of this
text in out Spiritual Body, pp. 176-179 ff.

48. In no. 83 of the “Book of Elucidations" (above n. 18), a text of the highest
importance.

49. See out Introduction to the great work of Ruzbehan, Le Jasmin des Fideles
d'amour, Bibliotheque Iranienne, VIII, Persian text published in collaboration
with Moh. Mo’in and trans. of the first ch. (Teheran-Paris: Adrien-
Maisonneuve, 1958), p. 37 ff. See also En Islam iranien, III, Bk. Ill, Ch. II.

50. BanatNa’sh, the constellation of the Bear (Ursa Major and Ursa Minor).

51. Compare the text used as an epigraph by an alchemist of the seven¬
teenth century in his edition of Nicholas Flamel: Et videbant lapidem stanneum in
manu Zorobabel. Septem isti oculi sunt Domini, qui discurrunt in universam terram (cit.
by C. G. Jung, Der Geist der Psychologie, in Eranos-Jahrbuch, XIV) (1947: 436-
437). One cannot help relating the theme of the seven Abdal (who nightly
traverse the world to inform the pole) to the text of Zechariah, “Those seven
are the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole earth” (4:10),
or again “ . . . the stone that I have laid before Joshua, upon one stone shall be
seven eyes” (Zech. 3:9).

52. For the context of this doctrine in Ruzbehan, see En Islam iranien, III,
Bk. Ill, Ch. III. It contains the Shi’ite of Walayat and the current Sufi idea of
Wildyat. There will be further occasion below ( infra VI, 2) to recall why the
frequent translation of the one or the other word by “sanctity” and of wall
(plural Awliya) by “saint" is inadequate. The term Initiation seems to recapitu¬
late best the implications of the word walayat. In Twelve-Imam Shi’ite gnosis,
the "cycle of Initiation" ( dd’irat al-walayat) dominated by imamology succeeds
the cycles of prophecy which were completed with the “Seal of the Prophets.”
On the development of this theme in Lahiji (the work cited below in note 118)
and on the relationship suggested with Goethe’s poem and “the Friend of God
of Oberland,” see our work£n Islam iranien, IV, Bk. VII, Ch. III.

53. For the text of this tradition, see op. cit. Ill, Bk. Ill, Ch. III. There are
numerous variations in the enumeration and classification of these mystical
hierarchies.

54. J. C. Coyajee, Cults and Legends of Ancient Iran and China (Bombay, 1936),
pp. 161-183.

55. Yaiata (Persian had) literally: “adorable.” When, in conformity with
post-Islamic tradition, the equivalent given for it is the notion of Angel (Persian

fereshta), what must be remembered are not so much the angels of the Bible as
the Du-Angeli of Proclus.

56. See the diagram set up by J. C. Coyajee, op. cit., p. 166.

57. Drower, op. cit. (supra n. 37), pp. 9, 56, 325. It seems fitting to mention
here the form of worship practiced by an ideal sect of philosophers, referred to
in the Encyclopedia of the Ikhwan al Safa (the “Brethren with pure hearts”).
These philosophers appear to be at once Sabeans permeated by Neoplatonism
and, as it were, pre-Ismaelian theosophers. In the course of each month they
celebrate three holy nights corresponding to the phases of tjie Moon (the first
night, the mid-month night, and lastly the night between the twenty-fifth day
of the month and the first day of the following month). The ritual on each

149

Notes

night is divided into three periods: the first third is devoted to meditation in
one’s private oratory; the second third to meditation on the “cosmic scripture”
under the sky, turning one’s face toward th e pole Star. The last period is de¬
voted to chanting from a philosophical hymnology (the “prayer of Plato,” the
“prayer of Idris-Hermes,” the “secret psalm of Aristotle,” etc.). The choice of
the pole Star a&qibla (the axis of orientation of the prayer) seems to point to the
Sabeism of these Sages; their calendar confirms this impression. See also Rasa’il
Ikhwan al-Safa IV (Cairo, 1928): 303-304, and for further details our study
Rituel sabeen et exegese ismaelienne du rituel, Eranos-Jahrbuch , XIX/1950 (1951):
209 ff.

58. See Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi , pp. 46-53 ("The Pilgrim to the Orient”), and p.
306 n. 37.

59. This treatise of ’All Hamadam has been studied by Fritz Meier, Die Welt
der Urbilder bei 'All Hamadani, Eranos-Jahrbuch, XVIII (1950): 115-172; see par¬
ticularly p. 167. Fritz Meier quotes (p. 92 of the work cited below n. 64) a
treatise also by ’All Hamadani entitled Hashrio al-ruhaniya wa-maghrib al-
jismaniya: the Orient of spiritual realities and the Occident of material realities.

60. See our Avicenna, Pt. I, p. 137 ff., particularly § 3, 10, 21 and 22; Pt. II,
p. 319 ff.

IV. VISIO SMARAGDINA

61. It is the brief anonymous treatise studied more than a century ago
(Zeitschrift der Deulschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft, Vol. 16 [Leipzig, 1862]:
235-241) by Fleischer, Ueber die farbigen Lichterscheinungen der Sufi's, according
to the Leipzig Ms. 187: De variis luminibus singulorum graduum Suficorum propriis.

62. See our edition of Hikmal al-Ishraq ( Oeuvres philosophiques et mystiques de
Sohravardi, II, supra n. 23, § 272). In this work, fifteen categories of photisms
which mystics can experience are described and the author’s conclusion is that
“all this pertains to the laws of the eighth climate, where the marvelous cities
Jabalqa, Jabarsa, and Hurqalya are to be found.”

63. See Gerda Walther, Phanomenologie der Mystik (Olten, 1955), pp. 68-71
and 151-155, and our analytical review of this work in the Revue de Ihistoire des
religions (January-March 1958), pp. 92-101. See also Mircea Eliade’s valuable
study, Significations de la "lumiere interieure "; Eranos-Jahrbuch , XXVI (1958): pp.
189-242. Victor Zuckerkandl’s substantial work, Sound and Symbol (New York,
1956), also contains original phenomenological observations of the “intentions”
of color (p. 61 ff.). There are cross-references in all these studies which have a
bearing on our purpose. Not being able to go into them further here, we shall
have to return to them at some other time.

64. All the parenthetical references in the text of the present chapter refer
to the excellent edition by Fritz Meier, Die Fawa’ih al-jamal wa-fawatih al-jalal des
Najm ad-din al-Kubra, Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur,
Veroffentlichungen der Orientalischen Kommission, IX (Wiesbaden, 1957).
This valuable edition, together with a German commentary, is a major con¬
tribution to the studies of Sufism. We have a slight reservation as to the form of
the title adopted by the editor in contrast to that of the majority of the manu¬
scripts. We also would prefer: Fawatih al- jamdl. . . and thus take it to mean: The
blossoms of Beauty and the perfumes of Majesty, which means that without the blos¬
soming of Beauty as theophany man could not approach the sublimity of the
Deus absconditus. Concerning these two categories of attributes see again infra V,

150

Notes

2. The aspects of Freundlichkeit and Erhabenheit derive respectively from the two
fundamental Attributes, but it seems to us essential to preserve their primary
meaning (without which all the texts relating to beauty as theophany in Ruzbe-
han and Ibn Arab! would be incomprehensible). We can give here only the
briefest glimpse of Najm Kobra's biography. Born in 540/1145, he spent the
first part of his life in long journeys (Nishapur, Hamadan, Ispahan, Mecca,
Alexandria) in the course of which he acquired his spiritual training. But the'
traditions concerning the order and itinerary of his travels diverge to the point
that they are difficult to reconstruct with perfect coherence. He returned to
Xwarezm in about 580/1184. From then on, all his activity took place in Central
Asia, where he had a throng of followers, several of whom bear illustrious
names. There is some evidence to indicate that he recognized only twelve great
disciples as such (see infra n. 109). Traditions relate his heroic death during the
horrible siege of Xwarezm by the Mongols in 617/1220-1221. We ourselves
devoted an entire course at the Ecole des Hautes-Etudes (1958-1959) to the
important treatise by Najm Kobra made accessible to us in Fritz Meier’s edition.
Here it has only been possible to indicate its principal themes. See Annuaire de
la Section des Sciences Religieuses, Ecole pratique des Hautes-Etudes, 1959-1960,
p. 75 ff. As for the bipolarity of the divine attributes Jamal and Jalal, there is an
exact equivalence in Kabbalah, see Gershom G. Scholem, On the Kabbalah and its
Symbolism, trans. by Ralph Manheim (London, 1960), p. 79 ff.

65. Concerning this term, see our Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi, pp.153, 179 ff., 187
ff., where the need for this neologism is explained.

66. On the three aspects of nafs (the soul) see infra §3. Taken by itself the
word nafs expands beyond our current notion of soul. In its higher aspect, the
soul is the heart (Arabic qalb, Persian del, German Gemut). In its intermediate
aspect, it is the intellect (‘aql), consciousness. In the present context, it desig¬
nates the lower psyche.

67. Among many other examples (it may also be recalled here how
Zarathustra put Ahriman to flight by reciting the Ahunavairya, see Vendiddd
XIX), Fritz Meier recalls (op. cit., p. 162) an episode that figures in the Slavic
version of the Vita Adae el Evae : when the Devil tries to lure Eve away from the
Tigris by his talk, Eve does not utter a single word in reply.

68. On the mystical exegesis of this verse from he Qoran see our Sufism of
Ibn 'Arabi, p. 132.

69. A perfectly polished mirror (speculum) in which the image that is re¬
flected is both what sees and what is seen: it is the leitmotif of all speculative
mysticism attempting to express the “duality” of the unus-ambo, the secret of the
heavenly alter ego, from the finale of the Song of the Pearl to the motif of the
shaykh al-ghayb in the present treatise.

70. See the text of the Risalat al-insan al-kamil (Treatise on the perfect man)
of’Ah HamadanI (supra n. 59), given by Fritz Meier, op. cit.Anhang, p. 283, no.
5.

71. Himma. Concerning this notion, see out Sufism of I bn’Arabi, p. 222 ff.

72. As an illustration of the same theme, we should cite a remarkable case of
“synchronicity” between one of Najm Kobra’s dreams and a dream of his own
shaykh, 'Ammar Badlisi: “I was in my retreat and behold, I experienced ecstasy
(lit., “I went away,” as the author always says in such cases). I was raised to the
heights and behold, there was a rising sun before me. I was led into this sun,

151

Notes

after having experienced the tremendous intensity of its energies. Later I ques¬
tioned the shaykh fAmmar) about this. He said to me: ‘Glory be to God! I
myself had the following vision in a dream: I seemed to be strolling in the
sacred territory of Mecca. You were with me and the sun was in the middle of
the Sky. Then you said to me: O shaykh! Do you know who I am? I said: Who
are you? You said: I am that sun in the Sky. Then my shaykh rejoiced that our two
visions had synchronized. He said: ‘I was ushered into the world of the heart. I
carried on the battle for God night after night. 1 observed the Sky attentively
until it entered into my inner world, and I experienced that/ am the Sky. And I
observed the Sky throughout other nights until I saw it below me, just as I had
seen it above me. And I observed the Earth night after night, and I sought to
discover it as it is, until it was engulfed in an orb of light (§58).”

73. Concerning this extremely important comparison see Fritz Meier, op.
at., p. 79, and Carl Schmidt, Koptisch-gnostische Schriften I (Berlin, 1954): Das
ersteBuch des Jeu, Ch. 39, p. 294; Das zweile Buch desjeu, Ch. 42, p. 303.

74. In the Risalal al-sa’ir (F. Meier, p. 201, n. 5) Najm Kobra recommends
adding from time to time the second part: “And Mohammad is God’s Mes¬
senger.” We should take into account, on this point, the increasing complexity
of the formula in certain Shi’ite circles; the Imam is mentioned as the wall
Allah, “Friend of God,” “initiator,” even Fatima as “Light of God.” Generally
speaking, Shi’ite doctrine and practice include a triple shahadat: 1) attestation of
the Divine Unity; 2) attestation of the prohetic mission; 3) attestation of the
Waldyat of the Imams.

75. See Herzog, Realencyklopadie fur protestantische Theologie und Kirche 3rd
ed., XVI, 251, 1. 49 ff.; E. Tisserant, Ascension d’Isaie (Paris, 1909), p. 211, note
on 11:34 (reminiscence of the Revelation oj Elijah in St. Paul, according to Ori-
gen; reminiscence of Isaiah, according to St. Jerome: Ascensio enim Isaiae et
Apocalypsis Eliae hoc habent testimonium).

76. Najm Kobra’s Risalal ila’l-ha’im, quoted by F. Meier, Anhang, p. 295, no.

20 .

77. Ibid., p. 202; L. Massignon, L’idee de tesprit dam I’Islam, Eranos-Jahrbuch
XII1/1945: 279 (the Taoist influence was pointed out by H. Maspero; see also
supra III, 3, concerning another possible Taoist influence).

78. F. Meier, op. cit., p. 204; Rudolf Otto, Siinde und Urschuld (Munich,
1932), p. 140 ff.

79. The himma : see supra n. 71.

80. Majdoddin Baghdadi (quoted by F. Meier, p. 244), in his Tohfat al-barara,
also mentions a shaykh’s saying, wherein the green color is characterized as the
last veil of the soul. On the pre-eminence of this color in Semnani, see infra VI,
1.

81. “Know that four angels raise the mystic towards this mystic station—the
Abode of the lordly condition and of power: one on his right, one on his left,
one above him, one below him . . .” (§19). On this quaternity representing a
symbolism of the center, see our commentary on the “Confessions extatiques
de Mir Damad" ( supra n. 20); a similar angelic tetrad figures in the Summum
Bonum of Robert Fludd, 1629 ed. "Usually the Angels come from behind.
Sometimes they come from above. The same for the Saklna: this is a group of
Angels who descend into the heart; their advent brings an experience of quiet
and peacefulness into the heart. They transport you out of yourself so wholly
that you have no longer any freedom to move or speak, no possibility of think¬
ing of anything other than the divine Being” (§21). “An Angel carried me away.

152

Notes

He came up behind me, took me in his arms and carried me off; then he
turned toward my face and gave me a kiss. His light sparkled in my inner view.
Then he said: In the name of God, than whom there is no other, the Compas¬
sionate, the Merciful. Then he rose up with me a little higher. Then he set me
down again” (§23).

82. Concerning the seven Heavens, see Qoran 67:3 and 78:12; concerning
the seven Earths, Safinat Bihar al-Anwar, I, 661. For an amplification of this
theme in the Shaykhite School, see our Spiritual Body, p. 302, n. 86.

83. This is the general theme of our book, Spiritual Body, referred to in the
previous note; see also.Su/nm of Ibn 'Arabi, p. 350, n. 10.

84. Compare the text of theRisalat ilal-ha'im, quoted by F. Meier, p. 97, n. 2.

85. The same theme is fundamental in Sohravardi and his great commen¬
tator, Molla Sadra Shirazi: spiritual realities must be observed in a proper
manner, just as material realities caH for an appropriate method of observation.

86. See §§44 and 70. Attention should be drawn here to an important
treatise by one of the masters of the Iranian Shaykhi school of the last century,
Shaykh Mohammad Karim Khan Kermani, on the color red: the optical phe¬
nomenon, its essence and nature, its symbolic and mystical meanings, etc.
(Risala-ye yaquta-ye hamra). Compare this with the red light that is the dominant
note in the visions of Ruzbehan: “One night I saw something enveloping the
Heavens. It was a sparkling red light. I asked: What is that? He told me: It is
the cloak of Magnificence.” S eeEn Islam iranien. III, Bk. Ill, Ch. IV.

87. So in each case we are told about a light projected by its corresponding
organ, one of the subtle organs of the body of light, the visualization of which
corresponds to the moment when these organs become independent of the
physical body’s sensory organ. “The light of hearing does not have a circular
form: it consists only of two points of light which make their appearance be¬
hind the double circle of the two eyes” (§57). As in the case of the other senses,
this “visualization” of the acoustic phenomenon will be observed in terms of
suprasensory physiology. The “physiology of the man of light,” according to
Semnani, is established on a basis common to all the senses, but develops quite
differently in each case.

88. On this correspondence, see F. Meier, op. cit., p. 67, n.I; Paul Kraus,
Jabir ibn Hayydn, II (Cairo, 1942), index; our own study on Le “Livre du
Glarieux” de Jabir ibn Hayyan, Eranos-Jahrbuch, XVIII (1950): 75 ff.; Ps. Majritl
(supra n. 8), Das Ziel des Weisen, p. 46.

89. This is one of the well-known “outrageous sayings” of the great Iranian
mystic, Abu Yazid BastamI (d. 261/875), in our edition of Ruzbehan Baqli-
Shirazi, Commentaire sur les paradoxes des soufis ( Sharh-e Shathlyat), Persian text
with French introduction, Bibl. Iranienne, XII (Teheran-Paris, 1966).

90. Considerable research remains to be done on the various ways ol nam¬
ing this figure in the school of Najm Kobra. The shaykh al-ghayb appears again
in ’Aziz Nasafi, see the text Tamilal-arwah , quoted by F. Meier, p. 188, n. 1, and
Anhang, pp. 293-294, no. 18. In Semnant (infra, VI, 1) it is called ustadghaybl.

91. See the text of the Risalat ila’l-haim quoted by F. Meier, pp. 185-186 and
Anhang, p. 293, no. 17.

92. On this idea of the shahid, according to Ruzbehan, see our work En Islam
iranien, III, Bk. Ill, Ch. Ill, V, VI-6.

93. 'Aynal-Qozat Hamadani (d. 525/1131), Ahmad Ghazali’s favorite disci¬
ple (and who, like Sohravardi, died a martyr’s death), relates an analogous

153

Notes

vision in his book, the Tamhidat: “At this mystic station,” he said, "I saw a light
emanating from the divine being, and simultaneously I saw a light rising from
myself. The two lights met and blended together, and there appeared a form
of such beauty that for some time I remained dazzled thereby” (cit. F. Meier, p.
114, n. 1). It is significant that ’Aynal-Qozat ends this personal recollection by
an allusion to the well-known hadith of the vision, where the Prophet declares:
“1 saw my God in the most beautiful of forms.” See our Sufism of Ibn' Arabi, p.
272 ff.

94. Ghibto: As we have already pointed out, this is the technical term by
which Najm Kobra refers to each of his visionary experiences: “departures”
from the sensory world; “entrances” into the suprasensory world.

95. These Qoranic verses refer to the episode of Moses being rescued from
the waters. The way in which the verses are repeated in isolated fragments is in
accordance, of course, with the visionary’s intention. Ruzbehan also gives us to
understand that the words “I shed on thee love from Me” characterize celestial
love: the exegesis of this verse is to be found in the fact that Majnun has be¬
come a “mirror of God,” because his being has become the pure substance of
love {jasmin, §270 in fine). Besides, the passage contains another leitmotiv impor¬
tant in Najm Kobra, that of the “suprasensory books” written by God in
Heaven. Najm knows several of their titles; one may be able to read them (just
like the Qoranic verses quoted here) in the lines and figures outlined by the
stars in the Heavens of the soul (§71-72). F. Meier (pp. 134-135) reminds us in
this connection of the case ofjustinus Kerner’s Seeress of Prevorst.

96. This Persian word designates the violet (flower and color). Concerning
this other important theme of the esoteric names, or heavenly names, borne by
certain beings, see F. Meier, pp. 135-136.

97. See En Islam iranien. III, Bk. Ill, Ch. VI, 7, and my Introduction to Jasmin
(.supra n. 49) and the translation of the first chapter of that book.

98. Diwan d’al-Hallaj , ed. Louis Massignon in Journal asiatique 218 (1931), no.
30. The text given by Najm Kobra has some variants, see F. Meier, p. 39 of the
Arabic text.

99. Diwan, ibid. no. 57. See our edition of the Jasmin, Gloss. 95, p. 170. The
two lines are sometimes attributed to Hallaj, sometimes to Majnun, sometimes
quoted anonymously as they are by Ruzbehan’s commentator: "When the mys¬
tic reaches perfection in love,” he says, “the two modes of being become one
whole in him. Then he cries out: '1 am the one vyhom 1 love and the one I love
is I; we are two spirits immanent in one body.’” That these lines may have been
addressed to an earthly person, as Sarraj testifies, no more than bears out, far
from contradicting it, the theophanic idea of love, see En Islam iranien 111, Bk.
Ill.Ch. VI, 7.

100. The great mystic, fiery soul, not to be confused with his brother, the
theologian, Abu Hamid Ghazali. The Persian lexlSawanih by Ahmad-e Ghazali
(d. 520/1126) ( Aphorismen iiber die Liebe) was edited by Hellmut Ritter, in Bib¬
liotheca Islamica, 15 (Istambul-Leipzig, 1942). We have made a translation of it,
as yet unpublished.

101. The analogy with the Mazdean idea makes itself felt in context, espe¬
cially in certain interpretations which Najm Kobra gives of BakharzI’s visions.
See the passage in the latter's Waqa’i al-khalwat, quoted by F. Meier, p. 186 and
Anhang, p. 292, no. 16: “At that moment the force of the individuality (qowwat
al-’ayn) is revealed, that is called the suprasensory sun, and which is the scales for
weighing actions and thoughts. A man can recognize by means of these scales

154

Notes

whether his inner state shows an excess or a deficit, whether he is safe and
sound or in danger of perishing, whether he is on the right path or has strayed,
whether he is faithful or unfaithful and dissolute, whether his heart is dilated
or distressed, whether his goal is near or is still far off, whether he is rejected or
accepted, whether he is making progress or is standing still. In short, he can
discriminate between light and darkness."

101a. We are referring to the symbolic recital developed by Nasir Tusi at the
end of one of his books in Persian ( Koshayesh-Nameh , unpublished).

102. See references above in note 92.

103. Ibid. ', the whole of Ruzbehan’s book, The Jessamine of the Faithful in Love
(supra n. 49), forms a setting for this theme, of which only the bare outline can
be given here.

104. Ibn 'Arab!, Kitab al-Fotuhat al Makkiya, Ch. 360; Cairo edition, 1329, Vol.
II1, p. 274 ff.

105. Further to n. 101 above, one will recall here the connection in Christian
iconography between the symbol or attribute of the scales and the Archangel
Michael (whose liturgical feast, September 29, also comes under the zodiacal
sign Libra). This weighing of the souls was what led the Zoroastrian scholar, J.
J. Modi, to make a comparative study of the figure of the Archangel Michael
and that of Mithra in Zoroastrianism: St. Michael of the Christians and Mithra of
the Zoroastrians. A comparison (Journal of the Anthrop. Soc. of Bombay, Vol. VI, pp.
237-254).

106. All these connections have been admirably indicated in a little book with
which we do not entirely agree on all points but towards which we feel sym¬
pathetic because it is one of the rare treatises on angelology written in our time
and because it is for the most part inspired by heartfelt daring: Eugenio d’Ors,
Introduction a la vida angelica, cartas a una soledad (Buenos Aires, 1941), espe¬
cially pp. 37-40 and 62-63.

V. THE BLACK LIGHT

107. This is a corollary of the theme of the knowledge of like by like; in
Ruzbehan as well as ’Ibn Arabi, a fundamental theme is that the theophanies of
the Names and Attributes always and essentially correspond with the spiritual
state of the one to whom they are revealed.

108. See the excellent article by Jean-Louis Destouches, L’ombre et la lumiere en
physique, in the volume Ombre et Lumiere, publ. by the Academie septentrionale
(Paris, 1961), pp. 15-20.

108a. Here it is fitting also to bring to mind the correlation between the acts
of light or of illumination (ishraqat) and the acts of contemplation ( moshanadat )
in the cosmogony of Sohravardi.

109. Najmoddin ’Abdollah ibn Mohammad ibn Shahawar Asadi Razi, known
as Dayeh (d. 654/1256), one of the twelve great disciples whom, according to
one tradition, Najm Kobra accepted as such by name (see the writings of Ho-
sayn Xwarezmi, quoted by F. Meier, p. 44, n. 1); he lived later in Hamadan; at
the time of the Mongol invasion he retreated to Ardabil (the cradle of the
Safavid dynasty, on the present Russo-Iranian frontier, west of the Caspian
Sea), then in Asia Minor; he was in contact with Sadroddin Qonyawi and Jalal
Rumi’s circle. Buried in Baghdad. His chief work as a mystic, besides a Qoranic
commentary, is quoted below.

110. Chapters XVIII and XIX of the Mirsad al-'Ibad, publ. by Shamsol-’Orafa
(Teheran, 1312 s.h. [ = 1352 l.h. = 1933 A.D.]), pp. 165-173.

155

Notes

111. Concerning these two categories of divine attributes, see above n. 64,
remarks concerning the title of Najm Kobra’s treatise.

112. There is an important theological distinction between the two ideas of
Islam and iman, the second being the perfection of the first. In Shi'ite theology
iman, faith (as in fidelity and confidence), implies the adherence of the heart to
the person of the holy Imams as Awliya, the initiators to the hidden meaning of
the prophetic revelations; total faith in the Shi’ite sense presupposes the
threefold shahadal (above, note 74).

113. Wali-e motlaq. In Shi’ite terminology walayat is the prerogative of the Im-
amate, the charisma of the Imam as wall, including the Imam of our day who is
hidden and invisible (see supra III, 2 and 3, and infra VI, 2). It is impossible to
discuss here the relationships between ShFite terminology and that of Sufism
as such, nor the Shi’ite presuppositions, at least latent, in every theosophy
where the idea of walayat enters. Naturally the Shi’ite Sufis hold a precise opin¬
ion on this point and on the extensive use of the term Awliya. Here we note the
emphasis on the symbols of the sun and moon, which in general symbolism
figure respectively the masculine and feminine. In Ismaelian Shi’ite gnosis
(where the expression dd'i-e motlaq is somewhat reminding of the expression in
question here), the Imam as initiator to the hidden meaning, dispensator of the
“light of the walayat," is represented as “spiritual mother of the adepts.”
Fatima, the daughter of the prophet and the mother of the holy Imams, is the
“confluent of the two lights,” that of prophecy and that of initiation. In
Twelve-Imam ShFite gnosis, the solar walayat is that of the Imam, the lunar
walayat that of the adepts (LahijI, op. cit. infra n. 118, pp. 316-317), seeEn Islam
iranien I, Bk. I, Ch. VI, 2 and IV, Bk. VII, Ch. I, 3.

114. See ref.supra note 47.

115. See refs, supra note 92.

116. What is in question here are the planes or universes of a transcendental
cosmography, while the 18,000 worlds in Ismaelian gnosis, denote universes
following one another from a cycle of epiphany (dawr al-kashj ) to a cycle of
occultation (dawr al-satr), or from one religion to another, one civilization to
another. Each of these forms a separate universe, and only by speaking of one
in particular can one say that it had a beginning (see Nasir Tusi, Tasawworat, p.
48 of the Persian text). The figure 360,000 refers to a mega cycle (Kawr, A ’uov)
and concurrently to the 360 degrees of the Sphere; see in Ruzbehan the figure
360 refers to the number of Initiates who from one period to another are the
“eyes” through which God looks at the world. As for the figure 70, seeEn Islam
iranien, III, Bk. Ill, Ch. III. On the theme of 18,000 worlds in Kabbalah, see
Gershom Scholem, Les Origines de la Kabbale, pp. 476, 490.

117. Mahmud Shabestari, great mystic shaykh of Azerbaijan, lived principally
at Tabriz and died in 720/1320, at the age of 33, in Shabestar, where his tomb
still exists. His great poem was motivated by the questions of Mir Hosayni Sadat
Harawi. It is significant that both of these men were regarded by the Ismae-
lians as having been of their persuasion; see our edition of an unfinished Is¬
maelian commentary on Golshan-e Raz, published in our Trilogie ismaelienne,
Bibl, Iranienne, IX, Teheran-Paris, 1961, Ismaelism having survived in Iran
under the hhirqa (the cloak) of Sufism, or if one prefers, Sufism having taken
on certain aspects of a crypto-Ismaelism.

118. This commentary, re-edited several times in Iran, has again been the
object of a recent edition under the care of Mr. Kayvan SamFI, Mafatih al-i'jaz
(Teheran, 1957), in a beautiful volume of 96 + 804 pages. Shamsoddln

156

Notes

Mohammad Gilani Lahiji, native of the region to the southwest of the Caspian
Sea, was an eminent shaykh of the Nurbakhshiyah Order; he was even one of
the successors of Sayyed Nurbakhsh as head of the Order. He died and was
buried at Shiraz in 912/1506-07. Numerous pages of this commentary are to be
found translated in our Trilogie ismaelienne.

119. Qazi Nurollah Shoshtan is one of the great figures of Shl’ism in the
Safavid period (his lineage was traced back to the fourth Shi’ite Imam ’Alt
Zaynol-’Abidin). He died a martyr in India, by the order of Jahangir, in 1019/
1610. See out Introduction to the Jasmin of Ruzbehan, p. 73, n. 124. In his great
collection of biographies, Majalis al-Mu'minln, he gives valuable information
about our author.

120. Shah Esmall (bom 892/1487, died 930/1524, great-grandson through
his mother of Kalo Joannes Comnenus, last Christian emperor of Trebizond)
was, as we know, the restorer of Iranian national unity some nine hundred
years after the collapse of the Sassanids before the armies of Islam. It was he
who made Twelve-Imam Shi’ism the national religion of Iran. He was only
fourteen at the time of his coronation in Tabriz (905/1500); the night before
the ceremony, some of those close to him, and even some Shi’ite theologians,
warned him against the danger of formulating the Shi’ite profession of faith in
a city the great majority of whose inhabitants were Sunnites. To this the adoles¬
cent answered: “I am committed to this action; God and the Immaculate
Imams are with me, and I fear no one” (see E. G. Browne, Literary History of
Persia, IV, p. 53).

121. Kabud-pushan, the “blue-clothed," is. a current Persian way of naming’
Sufis, referring to their custom of wearing blue clothing; various explanations
have been given of this practice. Here it has a precise meaning, being in accord
with a general symbolism of the color of clothing. Thus the meaning of the
color blue (in Najm Kobra as in Semnani) makes blue clothing appropriate to
those who are still in the first stages of the mystic life. For that very reason one
can understand the malicious humor of Hafez with regard to those of the Sufis
who made a regular habit of wearing clothing of that color: were they to be
taken as people who never got beyond the first stages of the mystic life? On the
other hand, when the great mystic poet of Shiraz describes the status of his
master as "rose-colored" (Pir-e Golrang) as opposed to the wearers of blue, he
was alluding to this custom of changing the “liturgical" color of personal clo¬
thing to accord with progress on the spiritual path. See our Introduction to Jas¬
min of Ruzbehan, pp. 56-62 (where exactly the clue to the identity of the Pir-e
Golrang perhaps allows us to connect Hafez to the tariauat of Ruzbehan of
Shiraz, in it are also recalled several essential ideas in the symbolism of Hafez
which has been so unfortunately misunderstood in the West by simply forget¬
ting how and why his Diwan could have been used as a Bible by the Iranian
Sufis until our day). This practice is expressly attested to by Najm Kobra, who
distinguishes two categories of the color blue: kabud (deep blue) and azraq (sky
blue, azure), see the passage from his Adab al-Moridin quoted by F. Meier, p.
126, n. 7: black and blue (siyah o kabud) colored clothing are to be worn when,
thanks to the spiritual warfare, the lower psyche ( nafs ammara) has been over¬
come, as though one were in mourning for it. The meaning is therefore not the
same as in the case of Lahiji; here black does not refer to the higher stage
where one speaks of “black light.” In a higher spiritual Abode where the mystic
gains access to the translunar worlds by concentration of his spiritual energy

(himmat ), Najm Kobra connects this with the wearing of azure colored clothing.
In every case we must take into account the symbolic scale of the colors, but

157

Notes

they can vary, as we have seen here, from one master to another. In SemnanI
the highest color is the color green.

122. This is the poem of Mulla Bana quoted by Mr. Kayvan Sami’!, p. 95 of
his introduction to the Golshan-e Raz {supra n. 118). Other works referred to
therein show how visions of colored lights have never ceased to interest the
Iranians.

123. Pp. 94-102 of the commentary in the edition referred to, which we shall
now analyze without particular references; couplets 123-129 (not mentioned in
this edition) of the Rose Garden of Mystery.

124. See the second of the “Ecstatic Confessions” of Mir Damad, En Islam
iranien, IV, Bk. V, Ch. 1, 4.

125. Sayyed Ahmad 'AlawT, pupil and son-in-law of Mir Damad, see our Av¬
icenna, pp. 58-60.

126. Literally, “the black color of the aspect”; this statement can be related to
the fact that Lahiji habitually wore black clothing, this being the outward sign
of the metaphysical poverty which is the greatest of riches for the being essen-
tialized by the divine being of the Godhead. The theme of “black light” re¬
minds us here of the paradoxical form in which one of the most ancient Shi’ite
gnostics, Hisham ibn Salim Jawaliqi, propounded his doctrine: God has human
form and a body, a subtle body, not composed of flesh and blood, but of spar¬
kling, radiant light. Like the human being, He has five senses, but they are
subtle organs. He has abundant black hair which is black light (nur aswad). See
the context in our Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi, p. 381 f., n. 12.

127. Mashhad-, place of the presence of the shahid, where the witness testifies
to his presence and to the presence to which he is present (hence the place of
testimony of the martyrs). Therefore it is the shahid as place and form (mazhar)
of theophany (tajalli): the being of perfect beauty chosen as witness of contem¬
plation.

128. On the mystical context of this hadith, see our Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi, p. 272
ff.

129. For more details on the doctrines of SemnanI, see our work En Islam
iranien, 2 III, Bk. IV, Ch. IV. In it can be found in detail all the references to
the works of SemnanI, still in manuscript, in Persian and in Arabic; these refer¬
ences will not be repeated here.

130. Et. Gilson, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (New York:
Random House, 1955), pp. 341-342.

131. See Miguel Asin Palacios, Obras escogidas I (Ibn Massarra y su escuela)
(Madrid, 1946), pp. 159-160, on the Opus majus of Roger Bacon and the
spiritual interpretation of the Ishraqlyun. Concerning the science of perspec¬
tive as the most fundamental of the sciences of Nature, see Raoul Carton, L'ex
perience physique chez Roger Bacon (Paris, 1924), pp. 72-73, and L’experience mys¬
tique de Villumination interieure chez Roger Bacon (Paris, 1924), pp. 214 ff. (the
seven degrees of inner science), 265, 306 ff.

132. In fact the word tafsir designates the literal exegesis centered around the
canonical Islamic sciences. Although one generally refers to Semnanl's Tafsir, it
would be more appropriate to speak of his Ta’wil (ta’wil, etymologically, means
“to reconduct,” to lead something back to its origin, to its archetype). On the
three degrees of hermeneutics: tafsir, ta’wil, and tafhim, see En Islam iranien,
index s.v.

133. In Islamic exegesis the word Parakletos is taken to be a deformation, by

158

Notes

the Christians, of the word Peryklitos ( laudatissimus = Ahmad = Mohammad).
The verses (14:16 and 28; 15:16) of St. John’s Gospel would thus read as the
announcement of the advent of the Seal of the Prophets. In Shi’ite gnosis, the
Paraclete (faraqllt) is identified with the Twelfth Imam (the hidden and awaited
Imam) who will reveal the esoteric meaning of the Revelations; see our report
on L’idee du Paraclel en philosophic iranienne, presented at the Congress on
Iranology, Rome, Academy of the Lincei, April 1970, and published tnAtti del
Convegno internazionale sul tema: La Persia net Medioevo (Rome: Accademia
nazionale dei Lincei, 1971), pp. 37-68.

133a. This interpretation, in going to the very root, proceeds equally from a
deep penetration of Islamic theology. It would be interesting to make a com¬
parative study of the Pauline theme of tcertutri? (Phillip. 2:6 ff.), the “semetipsum
exinanivit" which was such a thorny problem for Lutheran theologians in the
nineteenth century; see article by Loofs, Kenosis, in Herzog, Realencycl. f prot.
Theol. und Kirche, 3rd ed., X, 246-263.

134. On the three bodies of the human being: body of origin, earthly and
perishable; body of acquisition or fruition; body of resurrection, and on the
analogy with the “physics of resurrection” in the Shaykhis, see£n Islam iranien,
III, Bk. IV, Ch. Iv, 5.

135. On these observations concerning iconography, see our Sufism of Ibn
’Arabi, pp. 275 ff. and 379 ff., n. 7 to 12.

136. See Louis Massignon, “The Origins of the Transformation of Persian
Iconography by Islamic Theology: the Shi’a School of Kufa and its Manichean
Connexions” (in Arthur Upham Pope, A Survey of Persian Art, Vol. V, Pt. IX,
Ch. 49 [Oxford University Press, 2nd ed., 1964-196], pp. 1928-1936, particu¬
larly pp. 1933-1936), who was the first to throw light on the role of Kufa at the
origin of painting in Islam, and to show the value of the testimony of Abu
Shakur Salimi quoted below. The Iranian motif of the Xvamah leads us how¬
ever here to a different interpretation of the connection of this iconography
with what the gold backgrounds of Byzantine iconography suggest.

137. See our Introduction to Jasmin, pp. 6 and 20.

138. This one, for example: “Raise up th edhikr of the Light, help the people
of Light, guide the light toward the Light.” See our Prolegomenes l to the Works
of Sohravardl (supra n. I7),p.45.

139. Farbenlehre, Kroners Taschenausgabe, Vol. 62: Schriften uber die Natur
geordnet und ausgewahlt von Gunther Ipsen (Stuttgart, 1949), Einleitung, p.
176. (We came across too late to be able to use it here a very interesting number
of the review Triades III, 4, winter 1955, dedicated to “the spiritual experience
of colors.” The articles in this number offer striking correlations with the pre¬
sent research.)

140. Ibid., §§ 1 to 3. Let us recall very briefly one of the simplest experiments
described at the outset of Goethe’s work. On a pure white sheet of paper place
or draw a disc of uniform color, blue for example; concentrate your gaze
fixedly and attentively on this disc. Soon the periphery begins to glow with a
reddish-yellow light that is very brilliant but extremely delicate, so delicate that
it is not always possible to give it a name. This iridescent light (physiological
color) seems to be trying to “escape” from the colored disc (recall here the
technique of Manichean painting). It succeeds and becomes a complete “orb of
light” which, having become detached, seems to flutter on the white paper
around the colored disc. If one abruptly removes the disc (assuming it to be a
separate piece) one then perceives only the orb of this physiological color.

159

Notes

141. Ibid., §805: “When the eye sees a color it is immediately activated and is
fitted by nature to produce unconsciously, necessarily, another color, which,
together with the given color, includes the totality of the circle of colors. A
single color provokes in the eye, through a specific sensation, the effort toward
generality.” §806: "In order to become conscious of this totality and satisfy
itself, it seeks at the side of each colored space a space without color in order to
produce the color it requires." (See the example given above in note 140.)
§807: "There exactly one finds the fundamental law of the whole harmony of
colors, of which each one of us may become convinced through personal ex¬
perience, by trying the experiments indicated in the section of this book de¬
voted to physiological colors .”

142. Ibid., §§751-756. §753: "To experience perfectly these definite and
meaningful effects, one must completely surround the eyes with a single color;
one is, for example, in a room all of one color, or one looks through a colored
glass; one is then oneself identified with the color; the color brings the eye and
also the mind into unison.” This may remind us of Nezaml’s great poem (of the
twelfth century), Haft Paykar (The Seven Beauties), in which the Sassanid pr¬
ince Bahrain Gor visits seven palaces, each of which respectively is entirely the
color of one of the seven planets; in each of the seven palaces, a princess of one
of the seven climates, dressed also in the corresponding color, tells the prince a
long story containing many indications. The poem illustrates the adage Vita
coelitus comparanda, and provides one of the motifs most frequently used in
Persian miniatures.

143. Ibid., 915-917. (N. 86 above refers to an important study by an Iranian
shaykh of the last century on the symbolism ( ta'wil) of the color red.)

144. Ibid., §819, ending as follows: “The mathematicians learned the value
and the use of the triangle; the triangle is held in great veneration by the mys¬
tics; many things can be schematized in the triangle, and in such a way that by
duplication and intersection we get the ancient and mysterious hexagon."

160

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162

INDEX

Abathur Muzania, 33
abddl: the seven, 52, 53, 134; the
forty, 56

Abu'l-Barakat Baghdadi, 19 ff.
Abu’l-Ma'ari, 66

Abu Shakur Salimi, 136, 137, 159
n.136

Abraham, 55, 105, 125; “of your be¬
ing," 124-126, 128,130, 143
absolute subject, 102, 112, 113
act: of light, 101, 102, 116; acts of il¬
lumination (ishragat), of contem¬
plation, 103 ff.; of the Light, 103,
143

Active Intelligence,see Intelligence
Acts of Thomas, see Song of the Pearl
Adam, 48, 55; carnal, 28; corporeal,
14; earthly, 14, 15,28,43;
esoteric, 58, 126; and Eve (Man-
deism), 33; and Phos, 14 ff.; “of
your being," 124, 126
Ahmad Ahsa’i, Shaykh, 114
Ahmad 'Alawi, Sayyed, 158 n.125
Ahriman, 29,47, 48, 151 n.67;

Ahrimanian counter-powers, 29
Ahunavairya, 151 n.67
Air (element), 65, 66, 77
alam al-mithdl, see mundus imaginalis

alchemy, 3, 77, 106, 134-139
'All Hamadani, 58, 68
‘All Zaynol-'Abidin, Fourth Imam of
Shiism, 157 n.l 19
Allberry, Charles Robert Cecil, 148
n.39

alone with the alone, 84
alter ego (heavenly), 8, 10, 33, 59, 151
n.69. See also Angel; Perfect Na¬
ture

Amahraspands (Zoroastrian archan¬
gels), 41 ff., 55
‘Ammar Badlisi, 151 n.72
Amrtakunda, 24 ff.

Ana’l-Haqq (Hallaj), 127, 128; anasirr
al-Haqq (Ibn ’Alabi), 129
androgyny, 48

Angel (the), 32, 97, 104; archetype
of humanity, 16, 20, 27, 33-40 (see
also Gabriel; Holy Ghost; Active
Intelligence); of knowledge and
of revelation, 14 (see also ibid.)]
esoteric Angel of each Heaven,
105; Angel-Logos, 7, 48, 113, 117

angelology, 6, 20, 97; Zoroastrian, 43
angelophanies, 79

Angels: the four, 147 n.31; of Christ,
16

animae caelestes, 105
anta and (you are I), 88, 116
anthropogony, 95-96
Antimimon, 48
Apocalypse of Elijah, 75
Apollinarious of Laodicea, 132
Apollonius of Tyana (Balmas), 18 ff.
Apuleius, 35, 45
'aql, see intellect
aqtab (poles), the seven, 52
arcanum, transconsciousness ( khafl),
69, 109-110. See also latifa
archetype: Figure (mabda’, dmutha),
33, 42 (see also mundus imaginalis );
Images, 5. See also Angel
Argun, 121

Ascension of Isaiah, 152 n.75
Asin Palacios, Miguel, 122
assumption to Heaven, 133
astrology, 134-135
astronomy: esoteric, 52, 135;

Ptolemaic, 60
'Attar, Faridoddin, 66
Attestor/Attested, 72
Attis, 27

aura, 62, \Sb]gloriae, 138
aurora borealis, 4, 5, 46 ff., 59, 119
Avesta, 55

Avicenna, 34, 113, 114; (apocryphal)
Epistle of the Origin and Return, 24
ff.; mystical recitals, 6; Recital of
Hayy ibn Yaqzan, 22, 25, 59, 101,

114,148 n.46

Awliya-e Khoda (Friends of God),
54-55, 105
auitad, the four, 57
‘Ayn al-Qozat Hamadani, 153 n.93

Bacon, Roger, 122
Bahram Gor, 160 n.142
Bailey, Harold Walter, 147 n.32
Banafsha, violet, 87
Bartholomew of Bologna, 122
barzakh, 101

Bastami, Abu Yazid, 153 n.89
Bear, constellation of the, 49, 52, 53
Bearing/Born, 17, 19, 21,30, 84
beauty, 36, 86-88, 92, 103-104, 108,

163

Index

135-136, 158 n. 127; as
theophany, 63 ff.; spiritual es¬
sence of, 137

being: the being beyond, 10 ff.; “the
one who never ha s not been ,” 118
“be-tween," man as a, 33, 95
birth (spiritual), 128
bi-unity, 7, 9, 23, 31,49, 68;see also
unus-ambo

black, 93; body, object, 100-103, 126,
138; color, 115; the black face of
beings, 112; luminous, 7, 126,

128

blackness: of the stratosphere, 100;

without light, 47
blazes, rejoining of the two, 63,
65-66,72-73,85-87,89,141,
143-144

blindness (spiritual), 66
blue-clad (the), Sufis, 157 n. 121
body: acquired subtle, 124, 129, 159
n. 134; of immortality, 130; of
origin, 159 n. 134; resurrection,
121, 135, 159 n. 134; subtle body
of light, 41, 106, 153 n.87
Boethius, 144
Boehme.J., 123

Books (suprasensory), written in
Heaven, 87
Briinnhilde, 32

Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, 138
Buddhism (Mahayana), 83
Buddhists of Central Asia, 50
Bundahishn, anthropology of, 147
n.31

Byzantine icons, mosaics, 40, 138,

159 n. 136

cardinal points, the four, 1, 14 ff.
caro spiritualis , 132, 136, 138
Carton, Raoul, 158 n.131
Catharism, 34

center, 5, 18,21,26,41 ff., 49
chakras, 83

Chinvat Bridge, 30-33,41,44, 51
chivalry (spiritual chivalry, javan-
mardi), 136

Christ, 16,47, 55, 133; and Mani, 27;
Christos-Angelos, 27, 34; Christus
juvenis, 132-133 \ Christus-Pastor,

Christianity, 47, 127, 132; Ebionite,

135; oriental, 138
Christians. 127, 128
Christology, 27; Qoranic, 129
Chromatic harmony, 111, 141
cities of the oppressors, 23-24, 45,

47, 49-51; personal city, 25
circumambulation, 49
Climate, The Eighth, 2,44, 57, 60.

See also mundus imaginalis
clothing, symbolism of color of,

110-111; azure, sky blue, 157
n.121; black, 111, 118, 157 n. 121;
blue, 111, 157 n. 121; see also sym¬
bolism of colors

cloud: black, 65, 67, 93; glowing, 65;

of unknowing, 7, 10; white, 65
cognitio: matutina, 59 ■,polaris, 59; ves-
pertina, 59

coincidentia oppositorum, 47, 50
collective, collectivity, 10; collectivi¬
zation, 31, 51, 97

color: language of the soul to itself,
142; mystical meaning of, 140,
142-143; pure, 101; spiritual ex¬
perience of, 142-143,159 n.139
colors: archetypal conditions, 142;
auric, 62; blue (kabud undazraq),
157 n. 121; blue and yellow, po¬
larity of, 143; green, 143, 157
n. 121; harmony of, 160 n. 141;
lights made colors, 101; mental
impressions of, 142; “physiologi¬
cal,” 62, 102, 139-144; in the
pure state, 103, 116, 126, 138,
139; red, 142-143; the seven,

102, 142; symbolic, not allegori¬
cal, use of, 142 ff.; synchronism
of, 81; the world of, 131-139. See
also symbolism of colors
Column: of Dawn, 45; of Light, 70;

columnaglonae, 5, 34, 45
Communicatio idiomatum, 71
complementaries and contradic¬
tories, 47, 50, 94
conscious, 6

consciousness, 47, 93-94,96-97,
99-100

Contemplator/Contemplated, 72, 84,
106

correspondences, law of, 123
Coyajee.J. C., 149 nn.54, 56
Cross of Light, 45

164

Index

Cycle: of epiphany, of occultation,
156 n.l 16; of Initiation, 149
n.52; of initiatic growth, 125; of
prophecy, 12,54, 125, 134-135;
of the walayat, 134

Daena, 97; in Manicheism, 35; in
Mazdeism, 30 ff.; The Soul on
the Way, 30-31; eschatological vi¬
sion of, 30 ff., 33, 41; and
Fravarti, 30, 31, 89, 92
ddimonparedros , 27, 35
darkness, 4-5, 14, 28, 96; twofold, 6
ff.; Above, 100; at the skirts of
the Pole, 6-7, 11, 18, 100-101,

114, 116, 138; divine, 7, 100, 117;
Beneath, 100; Ahrimanian, 31,
96,97, 102-103, 108, 111, 114,
133, 138; demoniacal, 9, 108; of
the Far West, 101; of the Subcon¬
sciousness, 116. See also Night
dark noontide, 5, 118, 119, 126
darwish (drigosh, daryosh), dervish, 57,
112, 116. See also poverty
David “of your being," 125
Day: the world of, 4, 7; exoteric, 10,
24,46-49; deliverance of the “par¬
ticles of Light,” 133,137
Destouches,Jean-Louis, 155 n.108
Deus absconditus , 48, 53, 86, 100, 103,
108, 117, 150 n.64
devil (shaytan), 63, 65 ff.
dhikr (xekr), 64, 67, 73-76, 104; blaze
of the, 90 ff.; fire of the, 95, 100;
immersion into the heart, into the
sirr, 75 ff.; light of the, 104-105;
techniques, 75 ff.; of the Light,
159 n.; Hermetist, 19; Sufic dhikr
and Taoism, 75; and the monks
of Athos, 75

Dibelius, Martin, 147 n.27
Dii-Angeli, 149 n.55
dimension: beyond, 2,4; of light (be¬
ing), of darkness (quiddity), 114;
of the north, 3; polar, 7, 8, 143;
transcendent, personal, 6, 10, 20,
47,49, 64, 92, 100; vertical, 1,3,
42,50,51,62

disorientation, 7,47-50; of symbols,
51

divine attributes, 69, 71-72. See also
jalal,jamal

dmutha ^tutelary Spirit, Image), 58

Doppelganger , 95

dreams (ta’bir or science of), 81

Drower, Ethel Stefana, 148 n.37

Druses, 83

dualism, 48

dualitude, 97

dyads, 16

Earth: element, 65; of light, 11,35,
57; of visions, 40-41; heavenly,
57; and loci of the suprasensory,
70-71. See also Terra lucida
Ecclesia spiritualis, 53
Eckhart, Meister, 19, 68
ego, 9-10; lower, 66-67 (see also soul);

the true, 124-125, 127-128
Elburz (Alborz), 43, 55
elements, the four, 65
Eliade, Mircea, 150 n.63
Elijah, 55
Elixir, 135
ellipse, symbol, 10
Elohim, 143

Emerald: Rock, 6, 23, 43-46, 59, 70,
78,97, 126; Tablet, 18
Empedocles, 68

energy (spiritual), 70, 77, 141, 157
n.121

Enoch (Idris, Hermes), 55
Epimetheus, 15
Eran-Vej, 39 ff.

esoteric, 48; 105-106, 111; of each
Heaven, 60; meaning of the Qo-
ran, 121-122; hierarchy, 46, 52,
55, 57, 134
Espahbad, 31

events: in Heaven, 10, 129; of the
soul, 106, 128-129
Evil, 65

Exodus: of the man of light, 60, 121;

out of Egypt, 23, 24
exoteric, 105-106, 111, 122
experience (mystical), 70, 80
eye (the): itself light, 139-140; pro¬
duces its own color, 141; of the
heart, 106, 120; inward, 80
eyes: of God in this world, 53-54; in¬
ward eyes of man, 109

face: of light, 113, 143; black, 112-
113

165

Index

Janafi llah (resorption into God),

111. 117 ff., 127 ff., 132, 138
far east (spiritual), 43-44; far north,
40; far west (non-being, hell), 6-7,
101,114

Farbenlehre, 139-144
Fate, 15

Fatima, 2), 156 n. 113
Faust, 48 ff.

fedeli d'amore, 8, 91, 135
feminine, 103-104, 156 n.l 13
Festugiire, Andre-Jean, 147 n.26
Fire: element, 65-66, 77; dark fire of
the devil, 74; fiery light of the
dhikr, 73 ff.; infernal fire (inward
to man), 69

Flamel, Nicholas, 149 n.51
Fleischer, Heinrich Leberecht, 150
n.61

Fludd, Robert, 152 n.81
forms, 4; apparitional, 64 ff., 120; of
light, 27, 34-35,49, 57;
theophanic, 102-103, 106, 117,
119, 136,141

Franz, Marie-Louise von, 147 n.28
Friend of God (in the Oberland), 54
Friends of God, see Awliya-e Khoda.
Fravarti (foruhar ), 22, 28-32, 94, 97;

and Walkyries, 31-32
Fylgja, 32

Gabriel (archangel): Holy Ghost, Ac¬
tive Intelligence, Angel of hu¬
manity, 16, 27, 34, 55, 128, 130;
Angel of knowledge and revela¬
tion, 20, 117, 131; “of your be¬
ing," 117, 131, 134. See also latifa
gebra’eliya

Gardtmdn (Abode of Hymns), 30, 42
Gemistus Pletho, Georgius, 8
geocentrism, 3
getik (material state), 29
Ghazall, Abu Hamid, 154 n.l00
Ghazali, Ahmad, 88
Gilson, Etienne, 158 n.l30
gnosis: in Islam, 50; Ismaelian, 95,
134, 156 n. 116; Manichean, 133,
135; ShFite, 133-135, 159 n.133;
Valentinian, 16, 58
Goethe, 12,54,68,139-144
Gondophares, 22
Good, 65

Gospel according to Thomas, 3-4, 146
n.7

Green island, 58

Guarded Tablet (Lawh Mahfuz), 146
n.l 4

Guide of light, personal inward
guide, suprasensory guide
(moqaddam al-ghayb, ostad ghaybt,
shaykh al-ghayb), 9-11, 15, 27, 36,
48, 50,63,64, 82, 85, 130-131
Guiomar, Michel, 7

hadlth: of the vision, 105-106, 120.
154 n.93; of the seven esoteric
meanings, 122
Hafez of Shiraz, 157 n. 121
Hakim Termezi (898), 56
Hallaj(al-), 83, 88, 127
hallucinations, 62, 78
hearing of the heart, 131
heart ( qalb ), 65, 66, 68,69, 73, 78, 82,
93, 104, 109, 151 n.66. See also
latifa

Heaven: black, 101, 117; inward, 70,
82; of the heart, 69, 105; of the
robubvya, 79; of the soul, 45, 59,

Heavens: inward, 79, 83, 123; of the
heart, 105, 108; of the Earth of
light, of the Soul, 135; spiritual,
69, 79; suprasensory, 60; the se¬
ven, 83

hegemonikon, the, 31
Hermas, 26-27, 31

hermeneutics (spiritual, esoteric), 93,
121-122; and mystical psychol¬
ogy, 130

Hermes, 8, 26, 68; Creophoros, 27; ec¬
static ascension of, in Sohravardi,
5,45,47, 50-52,70, 77,85; and
the underground chamber, 18,
24, 45, 99; and the Perfect Na¬
ture, 17-19,21,31-32,45-46,
48-49; Sacred Books of, 14;
Shaykh of the personal city, 25;
vision of Apollonius of Tyana, 18
Hermetism, 11, 13; in Arabic lan¬
guage, 14, 16
hexagon, 160 n.44
Hibil Ziwa, 58
hierocosmology, 56, 57, 68
hierocosmos, 57 ff.

166

Index

hierognosis, 6, 56, 68
hierophanies, 41
hikmata.l-Ishraq, see “oriental"
theosophy

himma, 77, 151 n.71, 157 n.121
historicization, 132
history of the soul, 132
Holy Ghost, in man, 11,69. See also
Gabriel, Holy Ghost
homo verus, the man in man, 35
homoousia, 127

Hosayn ibn ’All, third Imam of
Shfism, 111

hour! (heavenly), 148 n.36
Hurqalya, 11,23,39, 42-44,46,57,
80-81, 102, 106,132
Hyperboreans, 40
hypostatic union, 132

Iblls, 43, 94; converting Iblis to Is¬
lam, 66, 94

Ibn al-’Arabi, Mohytddin, 22, 53, 81,
86,89, 96,115, 123, 151,n.64,

155 n.107; pilgrim to the Orient,
58

Ibn Kammuna, 46
iconography, 132-133, 135, 138-139
leu, Gnostic books of, 71
Ikhwan al-Safa (“The Brethren with
Pure Hearts”), 90; ritual of the
Philosophers, 149-150 n.57
iUuminatio matutina, 45
Image: of light, 34-35,52; primor¬
dial Images, 4-5, 32, 39. See also
archetype Images
“imaginal,”see mundus imaginalis
imaginary, 5

Imagination, 81; active, 5, 43, 81;
transcendental active Imagina¬
tion, 80

imaginative faculty (Imaginatrix),
64,81,106

Imam (in the Shfite sense), 131, 134,
135; the Imam as pole, 46, 48,

156 n. 112; the hidden twelfth
Imam, pole of poles, 52, 54, 56,
58, 159 n.133; the inward, 134;
Imamate, 134, 156 n.l 13,1m-
amology, 54, 122, 131-134

immaterialization, 102
immersion of the object into the sub¬
ject, 118

Incarnation, 127, 128
individual and species, 97
individuality (spiritual), 16, 20, 99,
104,107,143

individuation (essential), 93, 97
Infernum, 50

infraconsciousness, 96, 101
initiation, 53, 54; individual, 95;
failed, 128

intellect (aql), 66-68, 93, 110, 151
n.66. See also latifa
Intelligence: the First, the Nous, 7,
82; Active, 20, 59. See also Gabriel
Intelligences, theory of the, 60, 113
internalization, 60, 75, 82, 106, 127,
139; of Imamology, 131, 134
Invisibles (the), 11
inward master (ostad ghaybi), in¬
visible, 85, 93-94, 130, 134. See
also Guide of light
inwardness of light, 5
Ionian school, 139
'Isa ibn Maryam, 72, 127. See also
Jesus

Ishraq, 8; Israqiyun, 31,42, 45, 117,

122

Islam and tman, 164
Ismaelians, 122, 156n.l 17; an¬
thropology, 33
Istaftln (esoteric name), 87
Istamakhis (kitab al-), 146 n.9
Ivanow, w,, 148 n.35

Jabalqa.Jabarsa, 41
Jabarut, 59, 79
Jabir ibn Hayyan, 153 n.88
Jalal (divine attributes of rigor,

majesty), 103, 108, 136,151 n.64
Jalaloddm Rumi,21, 131, 155 n.109
Jamal (divine attributes of grace,
beauty), 103, 108, 136, 150-151
n.64

Jawaliql, Hisham ibn Salim, 158
n.126

Jerusalem (heavenly), 41,42
Jesus: Ruh Allah, 128, 130; “of your
being,” 125-128. See also latifa
Jung, Carl Gustav, 147 n.28, 149
n.51

Kabbalah, 156 n.l 16
Kay Khostaw, 60

167

Index

kenosis (fana of the divine into the
human reality), 127
Kerubim, 79, 113

Keshvar (orbis , zone), 39; the seven,

42, 148 n.44; the central, 42; the
eighth, 43

Khezr (Khadir, Khidr), 55
Kraus, Paul, 153 n.88
Kuh-e Khwajeh, 22

Lahiji, Shamsoddin Moh., 100, 110,
114-116, 126; his visions of the
black light, 111-112
latifa (subtle organs or centers), 12,

64,83; the seven, 42, 107, 109;
qalabiya, nafsiya, 124, 129 ;qual-
biya, ana'iya, 124; ruhiya, 125;
khafiya, 125, 128; haqqiya, 125,

127, 129-130 fabra’eUya, 131
latitudinal and longitudinal order of
Lights, 102
Leibniz, 97

ligature of the senses, 26, 79
like with like, 64, 69-72, 87, 139,141
Light, 4, 8,96; and darkness, 108;
white, 107 ff.; blue, 89, 107 ff.; in
your heart, 65; of fire, 76; of the
tongue, of hearing, 82; of
prophecy, 104; of pure Essence,
101, 111, 115; of theophany, 118;
of the walayat, 104; of lights, 103;
of the dhikr, 67; the northern, 4,

11,45,47; of the Throne, 66; in¬
ward, 18,40,43,45,46, 139; yel¬
low, 107 ff.; black (nur-esiyah, the
antithesis of Ahrimanian dark¬
ness), 5, 7, 11-12,47,49,96,
100-103, 107-108, 110-120, 126-
129; Ohrmazdian, 31,97; of ori¬
gin, 44-45; that makes one see
(absolute subject), 102,116; re¬
vealing, revealed, 144; red, 107;
without matter, 100, 102; upon
light, 29, 31, 72, 74, 97; green, 7, 9,
37,64,76-79,93, 100, 107, 111,
117, 126-127, 129
lights: ascending and descending,
72-73, 138; colored, 61, 104, 108,
112 (red, yellow, white, blue),

124, 126 (seealso photisms);of
Beauty, Majesty, 103-104; of the
heart, of the Throne, 72-73; un¬

created, 40; infinite, 31,60; pure,
102, 104; suprasensory, 119;
theophanic, 99, 108
“loci": of Mercy, 77; of the true God
leu, 71; divine, 76
Lotus of the limit, 117, 130
Love: four degrees of, 89; human
and divine, 87-88; mystical, 86-87
Luther, Martin, 4

Ma’ani, 81, 82
Macrocosm, 16,82
Magi, 22

Man: outward, carnal ( sarkinos an-
thropos), 14; Perfect, 118; univer¬
sal, 16. See also homo verus
Man of light (photeinos anthropos,
Shakhs nurani), 12, 14, 18, 25, 28,
36,47, 59,63,64, 85, 100, 106,
131-139; and the Perfect Nature,
25; ascent of, 42; physiology of,
41,62,74, 80,82, 83, 102, 121,
139-140, 143. S«« also Phos, latifa
Majdoddin Baghdadi, 152 n.80
Majnun, 88, 154 n.95
Majritl (pseudo-) 16-17, 46, 153 n.88
Malakut, 53, 59, 79
Mandala, 3,41

Mandeans, Mandean gnosis, 33 ff.,
50, 58

Man! (the prophet), 34, 133, 137
Manichean: cosmogony, 62;
dramaturgy of salvation, 133,

136; painting, 12, 101-102, 133,
137-139, 159 n.140; physics of
light, 136, 137

Manicheans, 11, 16, 20, 33, 34,45,
50,57,58, 131, 137; of Central
Asia, 136
Manvahmed, 34
Mary Magdalene, 15-16, 144
Maryam, 21,76, 128, 131
masculine, 103-104, 156 n. 113
Maspero, Henri, 152 n.77
Massignon, Louis, 137, 152 n.77, 159
n.136

Matter (subtle), 44, 102, 108
Mazdeism: triad of thought, speech,
action, 33; triad of soul on the
way, soul outside the body, soul
within the body, 30-31
Meier, Fritz, 150 n.64, 151 n.67, 152
on.73, 78, 153 n.88, 154 n.96

168

Index

Menok (subtle state), 29; Menokih
(subtle organism), 30
Mephistopheles, 48
Meru, Mount, 56
Ming-Tang, mystical palace of, 57
metaphysics of Light, 101, 122, 132,
133

Michael (archangel), 27, 55, 155
n.105

Mir Damad, 21, 112, 131, 152 n.81
Mi'rdj (heavenly assumption of the
Prophet), 3, 58, 60, 70
Mirror, 104, 106, 129, 151 n.69
Mithaq (pre-eternal covenant), 3
Mithra, 155 n.105
mixture (cosmogonic period), 29
Modi.J.J., 147 n.31, 155 n.105
Mohammad: the Prophet, 34, 130;

“of your being," 125, 129-131
Mohammad Karim Khan Kermani,
153 n.86

Mohammadan (the true), 131
Mohsen Fayz, 149 n.47
Mokashafat (unveilings of the supra-
sensory), 103, 107, 109-110
Monophysitism, 138
Mons Victorialis, 22
Moon, 67,83
More, Henry, 102

Morid and Morad (the seeker and the
sought), 63, 68, 139,144
Moses, 55, 105, 154 n.95; “of your
being,” 124, 126
“Mothers,” world of the, 42, 102
Mount Salvat, 22
Mountain: cosmic, 41,56 (see also
Qaf); of dawns, 41
Mshunia Kushta, 33, 58
Mundus imaginatis ('alam al-mithal), 6,
42 ff„ 46,58,76,80, 102, 106,
108

Najmoddln Kobra, 7, 8, 11, 17,28,
36, 37,46,60,61-97, 100, 102,
117, 139, 140

Najmoddin Razi (Dayeh), 61, 100,
103-110, 115, 123, 126
names (esoteric), names in heaven,
87,88, 154 n.96
Nasafi, Aziz, 153n.90
Nasiroddm Tusi, 33, 90, 156 n. 116
Natural existence, 64, 66

Nature, 63; spiritual sciences of, 134,
135

Neoplatonism, 13
Neryoseng, 56
Nezami, 160 n. 142
Nicotheos, 14
Nietzsche, 128

Night, 7; the world of, 4; of light,
luminous, 4, 5, 7, 12, 18,47-49,
112, 117-119, 126; esoteric, 48;
of pure essence, 119; of symbols,
48; divine, 19. 103, 108, 111, 138;
divine night of unknowing, of the
ineffable, 9-10, 46,48; of super¬
consciousness, 10, 48; Ahrima-
nian, 48; of the demoniacal
depths, 49; without light, 49;
dark, 7

“Noah of your being,” 124, 126
north, 3, 4; as qibla, 50, 57; as sym¬
bol, 40, 50; cosmic north, abode
of the Angel Sraosha, 56-57;
cosmic north, threshold of the
beyond, 2, 5,6, 7, 23, 39,45,49,
50, 53, 56, 58, 78; heavenly, 1, 23;
the side of light, 62. See also far
north

Nous (the), 34; of Hermes, 26; ac¬
cording to Philo, 35
Nurbakhsh, Nurbakhshiyah (order
of the), 157 n. 118
Nyberg, Henrik Samuel, 147 n.31

observation ( irtisad) of the spiritual,
153 n.85

Occident, 4; symbol of the shadow,
the world beneath, 43-45, 50,
58-59. See also far west
Ohrmazd, 29, 41,47
optics: laws of, 122; anthropological,
143

orbs of light, 67, 82 ff., 93, 103, 152
n.72; circle of the divine light, of
the vital pneuma, 83; double cir¬
cle of the two eyes, 83 ff., 90; cir¬
cle of the face, 85-86; the August
Face, 84

organs or centers (subtle), organs of
light, 68,80, 82, 121, 123 ff., 130,
138; the five subde organs (Najm
Razi), 107, 109-110. See also latifa
Orient: symbol of the suprasensory

169

Index

world, 2, 4, 44, 58-60; greater
Orient (Jabarut), lesser Orient
(Malakut), intermediate Orient
(mundus imaginalis, eighth cli¬
mate), 44 ff.; metaphysical, mys¬
tical, 2, 8, 11, 23, 25, 37; Origin,
6,8, 11, 27, 37, 44, 45, 58. See also
far east

“Oriental” (the Stranger, the man of
the “north”), 46

“Orientals” (in the metaphysical
sense), 23, 59

oriental knowledge, 59; Sohravardi's
“Oriental” theosophy, 13, 16,32,
42,59, 101, 114

orientation, phenomenon of, 1, 2, 5,
7, 11,27,39,44,47,48,51,54,
58,62,63 ff., 69, 103, 108, 111;
polar, 94, 129
Orphism, 58

Ors, Eugenio d’, 155 n. 106
Ostadghaybi, 36, 153 n.90; see Guide,
inward master
Otto, Rudolph, 75
outward master (ostad shahadi),
visible, 130

pantokrator, 133
Paraclete, 125

paradoxes of the mystics, 88
Parmenides, 58
Parsifal, 22

partner (heavenly), 7, 11, 27, 33, 93.
See also Angel; Guide; Perfect Na¬
ture

parvanak (companion, guide, savior),
148 n.49

perception (suprasensory), 102, 105;
suprasensory perception of the
sensory, 80; direct perception of
the suprasensory, 81, 105; indi¬
rect perception, 81-82
Perfect Nature, 8-10, 84, 133; the
philosopher’s Angel, 17-18,

20-21, 24, 36, 104; bi-unity, 23;
Bearing/Born, 17, 19; the Holy
Ghost in thesa&A, 44; and the
archetype-Angel of humanity, 16,
20, 27, 34, 131; and Hermes, 21,
45, 97, 99; and the sakshin, 35;
guide of light, 14, 18,63; per¬
sonal liturgy, 19; modes of man¬

ifestation, 17 ff.; heavenly part¬
ner, 27; Sohravardfs psalm, 17,
19, 21 ff.; sun of the philosopher,
17, 36, 46; final secret of the
Sages, 18

Persian miniatures, 12,63, 101, 133,
137-138, 160 n. 142
perspective, laws of, 123
Phaedo, 35

Philo of Alexandria, 35
philosophical alphabet (jafr), 83
Phos, 14-16, 18-19, 26, 28,31, 36,48,
63, 97. See also Man of light
photisms, 102; of pure light, 107;
colored, signs of spiritual states,
7-9,12, 28,61,63, 64, 71, 73, 78,
81,82, 107 ff., 110, 139, 142. See
also symbolism of colors
physiology, centers of subtle, 75-76.

See also latifa; organs
Picatrix, 146 n.8
Pinfes, Salomon, 146 n.16
PisHsSophia, 15, 35, 144
Plato, 8, 35; Platonic Ideas, 42; neo-
Zoroastrian Platonism, 43
pleroma of Lights, 148 n.46
Plotinus, 35,68
Poimandres, 26, 27
pole (symbolism of the), threshold of
the beyond, summit of the
esoteric hierarchy, 2, 7, 10, 18,

22, 44, 50, 52, 57, 64, 69, 70, 89;
the hidden Imam, 48, 52,54, 56,
134, 135; locus of origin, 121; “o-
rient,” 6; heavenly, 2, 5-8, 11, 42,
43, 56, 62; the seven poles ( aqiab ),
52,53

polychromy, 137

poverty (metaphysical, mystical, in
the true sense), 112-115, 117-
118, 128. See also darwtsh
Presence, 114; to the world, 1,2;

human, 1-3, 5
Proclus, 149 n.55
Prometheus, 15, 16, 36, 63
Prophets: the seven great, 12; the
“seven prophets of your being,”
121-131,135
prophetology, 134
psyche: collective, 51; lower, 151
n.66; obscure, 46
Peuch, Henri-Charles, 148 n.38

170

Index

Qaf, Mountain of, 23, 43, 44, 58, 78,
97

Qayrawan, 23
Qazwin, 122

qibla: north, 57; sun and moon, 57
Qoran: sura 20 ( Ta-ha ), 87; verse of
the Light (24:35), 72, 104, 106,
146 n. 13; sura 53 (The Star), 105;
esoteric and exoteric of the, 121,
122, 130; cosmic, 69
qotb (pi. aqtab), see pole
Quest for the Orient, 2

rafraf, 131

realism (spiritual), 132
reality (suprasensory), 78, 109
reintegration, myth of, 47
Ringbom, Lars-Ivar, 145 n.2
Ritter, Hellmut, 146 n.8, 154 n.100
robe of light, theme of the, 31, 91.

See also Song of the Pearl
Rose Garden of Mystery (Golshan-e
Raz), 110-120, 126
Ruska, Julius, 145 n.4, 146 n.14
Ruzbehan Baqli Shirazi (1209), 8, 52,
86,87, 89,92,134, 135, 151 n.64,
153 nn.86,89, 154 n.95, 155
n.107, 156 n. 116

Sabean liturgies, 19; Sabeans of Har-
ran, 16,46, 50, 149-150 n.57
Sadra Shirazi (Molla), 114, 115, 148
n.46, 153 n.85

Sadroddin Qonyawi, 155 n. 109
Sages of ancient Persia, 8
Sakina, descent of the, 79
Sakshin, 35

salvation (cosmic), 134
Saoshyant, 22
Sassanids, 138
Satan, 47

Scales; of the suprasensory (mizan
al-ghayb), 36, 77, 78, 85, 90,
92-93,97, 128, 141; in the
Zodiac, 155 n.105
Schmidt, Carl, 145 n.6, 152 n.73
Scholem, Gershom Gerhard, 151
n.64, 156 n. 116
Schwenckfeld, Caspar, 132
Scott, Walter, 145 n.4
secret of mystical wayfaring (sirral-
sayr), 73

secularization of the spiritual, 51,

132

Seeress of Prevorst, 154 n.95
Sejestani, Abu Ya’qub, 137
Self (the), 9

Semnani, Alaoddawleh (1336), 12,
36,61,75,83, 100, 107, 111, 117,
121-133, 153 n.87
“sense of history,” 10, 129
senses: physical, 81; and organs of
light, 15; suprasensory, 62, 80,

81,82, 86, 96,102, 107, 109, 115,
139, 140. See also latifa-, organs
Seraphiel (archangel), 55, 56
Seven (the): abdal, see abdal; colors,
102; subtle organs, 12 (see aiso
latifa)', planes or categories of be¬
ing, 79, 83; the seven poles, aper¬
tures of the Throne, 52; esoteric
meanings of the Qoran, 123;
Earths, Heavens, wells, 79
seventh valley (the), 107,118
Shabestari (mahmud), 110ff., 126
Shadow (the), 47, 50, 63-64, 82,86,
89, 92-94, 139; Ahrimanian, 57,
91, 102; collective, 51, 96; de¬
moniacal, 116; individual, 51, 65
Shah Esma’il, 110-111
shahadat, 74; the threefold Sht’ite,

152 n.74, 156 n. 112
Shahid, see Witness
Shahrazori, Shamsoddin, 46
shaykh al-ghayb, see Guide; inward
master; Witness in Heaven
shaykhism, 42, 52, 153 n.86
shekhina, 79

shepherd (poimen ), 26 .Seealso Angel;

Guide; Perfect Nature
Shepherd of Hermas, 26-27
Shfism, 52, 54, 122, 131, 135; Shi’ite
theosophy, 133

Shishlam Rba (king of light), 58
Shoshtari, Qazi Nurollah, 110
sight (inward sight, basira), 85
Sinai (mystical), 23, 43
Sky, Skies, see Heavens
social, 97, 108

socialization of the spiritual, 10, 132
Socrates, 17

Soderberg, Hans, 148 n.40
SohravardI, Shihaboddin Yahya,
shaykh al-Ishraq (1191), 5, 6, 8, 13,

171

Index

16, 32,34,37,42, 100, 108, 115,
122,133, 134, 155 n. 108a; Opera
metaphysica /, 146 n. 17; Opera
metaphysica II , 147 n.23, 150 n.62;
Psalm to the Perfect Nature, 21 -22,
46; Recital of the Occidental Exile,

22 ff„ 43-45,59,63, 70, 148 n.46
Song of the Pearl (from the/(c/s of
Thomas), 22-24, 34,44, 48, 58, 63
Sons of Light, Sons of Darkness, 137
Sophia (heavenly), 35, 48
soror spirituaUs , 87, 88
soteriology, 133

soul (nafs), 68, 69; lower soul or
lower ego (nafs ammara), 63, 65,
66,67,74,82,91,93,94, 101,

107, 124; consciousness (nafs
lawwama), 66, 67, 82, 93, 94, 107;
pacified soul or higher ego (nafs
motma’yanna), 66, 67, 82, 93, 94,
105,107

Soul of the world, 124
south, the side of shadow, 62
spatiality, spatialization, 1,5
specularity (mira’Iya), 130
speculum,see mirror
Sphere of Spheres, 42, 43,46, 124
spirit (riih), 68-70, 110. See also latifa
Spiritus sanctus angelicus, Spintus prin¬
cipalis, 34

spissitudo spiritualis , 102
Sraosha (angel), 55 ff.
star: North, 56; pole, 1,8,49, 56
Stone (alchemy), 135
stones (precious), 69-71,73
Stranger, gnostic theme of the, 22,
24, 46

Strzygowski, Josef, 138
stupas, 42

subconsciousness, 7, 96, 100, 103,
116, 128

substance of light in you, 73
Sufis, Sufism, 11, IS, 64, 95, 122,
132; Central Asian, 56; Iranian,
2,8,47,55, 85,86,99, 107, 139;
Shl’ite, 54, 131, 135, 156 n.l 13
Sun: in the middle of the sky, 151-
152 n.72; of the Spirit, 9,46, 85;
of certitude, of knowledge, of
faith, 85; midnight, 4, 5, 7, 10,
45-48, 50, 85; of high knowledge,
9; of the heart, 9, 17,46, 85; of

the mystery, 9, 17; Northern, 50;
glowing, 67; rising in the west,

46; suprasensory, 46, 154 n. 101;
sun and moon, 105, 106
superconsciousness, supracon-
sciousness, 7, 10, 48, 96, 97, 99,
100, 101, 103, 109, 110, 116, 126,
143

superexistence, 143
superindividuality, 99
symbolism of colors, 61 ff.; ardent
fire, 77; black, 67, 89-91, 126;
blue, 65, 77, 93, 126; darkness
and fire, 65; green, 77, 78, 79,
82,93, 126, 130, 131; glowing
orb, red sun, 117; luminous
black, 126; red, 77, 80, 82 (purple
star), 93, 126, 160 n.l43; smoke
grey, 126; violet, 87; white, 126;
yellow, 77, 126; See also colors;
light

symbols of the north, 21, 36, 37, 45,
119

synchronism, 105
syncretism, 13

Syzygy, 19,21; of lights, 29,94, 95
Tabari, 32

Tablet, see Emerald Tablet; Guarded
Tablet

Tabriz, 157 n.l20

tafsir, 158 n. 132

Taoism, 56, 57, 75

ta'wil, 123, 130; of Christianity, 127

Temple of the light, 42, 45

tent (cosmic), 57

Terra lucida.b, 11,23,35,57,58,71,
138

theogony (Iranian, Nordic), 32
theophanic knowledge, 116
theophanies, 11, 50, 53, 72, 92, 103,
105, 117, 132, 136; of Names and
Attributes, 119, 155 n.l07
therapeutics (spiritual), 129
theurgy (supreme), 108
Throne (the), 66, 72, 73; in the mic¬
rocosm, 66
Till, Walter, 146 n.6
Timaeus, 35

time: outward of the physical world
(taman afaqi), 106, 123, 128, 129,
132; inward of the world of the

172

Index

soul (mman anfosi), 106, 123, 128,
132

Tobias, 31
Turfan, 138

transconsciousness, 68, 96, 109-110
transfiguration, 133; transfiguring
light, 138

transmutation: of being, 80; of the
senses, 80, 82, 144
Treasure, the hidden, 54-55
Treasury of Light, 71
triangle, 160 n. 144
tridimensionality (psycho-spiritual),
6, 89, 93, 94, 96
Twin: heavenly ( taw'am ), 33;

heavenly Twin of Mani, 27, 133;
of light, 58, 97

unconscious, 6,47, 48, 94, 95, 100;
collective, personal, 95; negativity
of the unconscious, 94
unconsciousness, 7, 10
universal (logical), 6
unknowingness that is knowledge,
116,117,118,119
unus-ambo, 7, 9, 17, 84, 97, 151 n.69
Upanishads, 35

Ursa Major, Ursa Minor,see Bear,
constellation of the
Uttara-kurus, 40,43
uxoriality, 85, 119

Valentinians, 132
Van der Leeuw, Gerhard, 32
Veils of Light and of Darkness, the
70,000, 109, 119
Verus Propheta, 135
Virgin (the) of Light, 34,35, 133
visio smaragdina, 11, 12,77,89, 100,
111, 120

visionary: apperception, 62, 64, 67,
68,70, 72,80,81,86, 101, 103,
106, 135, 138; geography, 39, 43,
44

visions of colored lights, 77; see
photisms

visualizations of inward states, 77,

78, 80, 107, 124. See also photisms
VitaAdaeetEvae, 151 n.67
vocation, 97

Vohu Manah (Bahman), 34, 41

Wagner, Richard, 32
wahdat al-wojud, 115

Walayat, 53, 131, 134, 149 n.52, 152
n.74, 156 n.l 13; solar, 105
wait , 134
Walkyries, 32
Walther, Gerda, 150 n.63
Wasitt, Abu Bakr, 104, 108
Water: element, 65-66, 77; of Life,
25, 114, 115

warfare (spiritual), 63, 64, 67, 109,
111

Weigel, Valentin, 132
well: image and theme of the, 23, 24,
37, 45, 47, 49, 51, 60, 62, 64; as¬
cent out of the, 70, 76, 77, 78-79,
80; Joseph’s, 78; of nature, 75; of
green light, 79
Werner, Martin, 147 n.28
Whittaker, Molly, 147 n.27
Widengren, Georgio, 148 n.40
wildyat, 149 n.52
Witness (shahid), contemplator/
contemplated, 28, 36, 91, 92, 99;
of contemplation, 19, 36, 72, 86,
106, 119, 120, 136; in Heaven
(shahidjTl-samd), 9, 10, 15, 17, 36,
46,63, 64,66, 72, 78,82, 84, 85,
86,91-94,97, 117, 119, 120, 133,
141, 143; Theophanic, 36, 86, 92;
absence of the, 90, 91 .See also
scales of the suprasensory; Per¬
fect Nature

World: of the Angel, 6; of the Soul,
126; suprasensory (ghayb ), 73-74,
79

worlds, the 18,000, the 360,000, 109

Xvarnah, 31, 138, 159 n.l 36; of the
Saoshyants, 41; landscapes, 138
Xwarezm, 151 n.64
Xwarezmi, Hosayn, 155 n.109

Yazata, 55

Yima (var or paradise of), 5, 11,40,
41,42,43,46,48,50,57
you, 9, 59

Zarathustra, Zoroaster, 8, 29,41, 60,
151 n.67

Zechariah, 149 n.51
Zervanism, 48, 50, 113
ziqqurat, 41

Zoroastrian: individual eschatology,
28; spirituality, 55, 56; Iran, 8

173

Index

Zoroastrianism, 11, 13, 47, 50, 55,
57, 92

Zosimos of Panopolis, 14, 15
Zuckerkandl, Victor, 150 n.63

174

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